Abortion: It's Not the Unforgivable Sin
I was listening to Focus on the Family on my drive back from the AFLC retreat center this past Thursday and a tragic story was related concerning a 45 year old woman who had an abortion in the morning. What this woman did not know was that her daughter was scheduled for an abortion at the same clinic that very afternoon.
In one day, in one place, two children were murdered, but these two children are a little bit different. For within an 8 hour time frame, this family lost a grandchild, a sibling, an aunt or uncle and a niece or a nephew.
Now you think about that. What would your life be like if you were missing any of these? What would it be like to not have your brother or sister? Your grandson or grandaughter. Your nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles? What would it be like to be missing a one of these because of a willful choice someone else made?
What if that person was missing because of a willful choice you made? What if it was your child? Oh I know right to life Sunday is difficult for those who have ended the life of a child by the act of abortion. The commemoration and all it’s trappings brings back all kinds of shame and guilt, and painful memories.
But what are we to do? Remain silent about the matter? How does that help the situation? How does it help others from making the same tragic mistake? No we must talk about it! And the first thing we must talk about is the forgiveness offered through faith in Jesus Christ.
There is no sin that God will not forgive. The only unforgivable sin listed in the Bible is the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Mt 12:31 "Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.
The sin of blasphemy against the Spirit is simply this: Refusing to repent. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to bring us to repentance and to curse repentance is to curse or blaspheme the Holy Spirit. To reject the godly sorrow that He brings to you over your sin is to reject salvation.
No wonder John the Baptist, Jesus, and the Apostles preached repentance! They were saying don’t blaspheme the Holy Spirit of God! Have godly sorrow over your sins! To remain hard hearted over our sins is to resist the Holy Spirit and in so doing, we are playing with judgmental fire.
Those who refuse to admit that the killing of an unborn child is sin are unrepentant and blaspheming the Spirit of God. Those who maintain that they have the right to choose to end the life created in their womb are blaspheming the Holy Spirit. They are refusing to repent, to think differently about what God says about life!
It’s life Sunday and so we are speaking about this specific sin, but it applies to all other sins as well. Do not resist repentance, for in so doing you blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Rather receive the correction of God and live!
Pr 15:10 he who hates correction will die.
Pr 3:11 My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, Nor detest His correction;
12 For whom the LORD loves He corrects,
You may want to stop up your ears when the matter of abortion and sin is brought up, but it is brought up because God loves you. He wants to give you opportunity to heed the Holy Spirit and repent, and be corrected..
Pr 15:32 He who disdains instruction despises his own soul, But he who heeds rebuke (correction) gets understanding.
To refuse correction is to hate your very soul as you allow it to continue in blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.
Zep 3:1 Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, To the oppressing city!
2 She has not obeyed His voice, She has not received correction; She has not trusted in the LORD, She has not drawn near to her God.
3 Her princes in her midst are roaring lions; Her judges are evening wolves That leave not a bone till morning.
Now, this verse deals with a nation, but it applies to individuals as well. To not deal with sin, to resist correction, is to throw yourself to the lions and the wolves. They’ll chew you up and spit you out! Ask someone who has responded to God’s call to repentance in the matter of abortion and they will tell you what it was like before they came to repentance.
The gnawing pain that never went away and all the different things they tried to medicate it with. Alcohol, drugs, relationships, food, ....even suicide. But understanding and relief won’t come until you are ready to receive correction, until you are ready to receive the Holy Spirit’s gift of repentance.
And oh, that our nation would understand the implications of this passage as it relates to the legalization of abortion.. “Her judges are evening wolves, not leaving a bone.”
So the starting point in all this is to admit the sin. Then by faith believe the Word of God. Believe what God says about your confessed sin. 1Jo 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Jesus paid for all sins, even the sin of ending the life of an unborn child. Understand what God has done with that confessed sin. He has forgiven or as the King James says, “remitted it.” To remit means “to send away.” It is to remove the sin from the sinner so that he is free of it, and so that the sin can never be found and charged against him before the judgement seat of God.
Now, the reminders of the sin will likely always be there. We do have memories you know. The devil, the great accuser will constantly remind us of it, always using the angle that we have committed an unpardonable sin, but don’t listen to him, listen to God. He does not hear the devils accusations.
It’s okay to grieve over the child, it’s okay to grieve over the act, and you will likely have seasons of both, but as a child of God, you need not grieve over the sin. You need not fear that God has stopped loving you. Your sin has been remitted!
But who says abortion is sin? The Bible tells us, “Thou shalt not kill.” We would all agree with that, the debate seems to be over when does life begin? From a purely common sense viewpoint life begins at conception. Think it through.
The 23 chromosomes of the male are present in the sperm, the 23 chromosomes of the woman are present in the egg. The two combine at conception and comprise 46 chromosomes, the typical number for a human life.
Fruit flies are have 8 chromosomes, Cats have 38, apes have 48, carp have 104 . Now there’s more to it than that, but you can see that the combination of the male sperm and the female egg produces life!
Immediately upon union the cells start dividing and reproducing working toward the finished product. The Psalmist puts it this way
Psa 139:13-16 GW You alone created my inner being. You knitted me together inside my mother. (14) I will give thanks to you because I have been so amazingly and miraculously made. Your works are miraculous, and my soul is fully aware of this. (15) My bones were not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, when I was being skillfully woven in an underground workshop. (16) Your eyes saw me when I was only a fetus. Every day of my life was recorded in your book before one of them had taken place.
Commenting on this passage in the new Bible being made available by Lutherans For Life called “God’s Word for Life” we read, “We know of course that God does not have tiny knitting needles that he uses inside a uterus. However guided by the Holy Spirit, David paints a picture of God’s intimate and delicate involvement in the formation of life from the moment of conception
As many people know weaving or knitting is delicate work. It takes concentration to make sure the right strands go in the right place to produce the pattern that will lead to a recognizable whole.
The scarf that your grandma knit is not only beautiful because of the amazing pattern of the woven threads, it is beautiful and valuable because of the hands that made it. Your life is amazingly beautiful and valuable, not only because of the miraculous complexity of your body, but because of the hands of your Creator.”
It is mind boggling to me that God knew all our days before any of them had taken place. God had you and I in mind from eternity as He began this creative process, and at just the right time He brought the right sperm and the right egg together to make you. All that was added from that moment on was food and time.
Any willful interruption of this process on our part is murder. It’s murder just as sure as Cain interrupting the process of life for Abel.
Some would have you believe that life doesn’t begin until the embryo implants in the uterus. This usually takes place about the 6th day after conception However at conception your sex, hair, eye color, height, and skin tone has already been determined.
Many birth control devices and some birth control pills work in a way that keeps the fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. The fetus is not given a chance to take in nourishment and it is flushed away. One less female blue eyed blond, one less bald browned eyed male. One less human being.
And from the biblical viewpoint, never forget that the Bible tells us that we are conceived in sin. Ps 51:5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.
Think it through as it relates to the humanity of that little fertilized egg!
Since the wages of sin is death, and we are conceived in sin, we surely must be alive, because in order for something to die, to pay the wage of sin, it must first be alive!
And think again, if what is growing inside the womb is not alive and growing, why do we feel like we have to eliminate it?
By the 22nd day, our hearts are beating with our own blood, (often a different type than the mother’s) 22 days! That’s not even one month. Most people don’t even realize they are pregnant yet.
By the fifth week, eyes. legs, and hands begin to develop, by week six we have detectable brain waves, the mouth and lips are present, fingers are forming. By week 7, the eyelids and toes form, the baby kicks. Every organ is in place by week 8, and by weeks 9 and ten the teeth and fingernails develop.
Even a child can look at this developing fetus and call it what it is....a baby. In Dr Jean Garton’s Book “Who Broke the Baby” she tells of viewing some pictures of an aborted child as she was researching the book. Her 3 year old son walked into the room and blurted out the title of her book, “Who Broke the Baby? Even a child knows.
People will come at you with all sorts of excuses to abort the child. The world is over populated. Really? Then how come The entire population of the world would fit in the state of Montana. Split them up into families of four and they could all have a plot of land 50 feet by 50 feet, and by the way (there would still be 300 billion square feet left over.
Texas is an even better deal! Each person gets 1000 square feet with 1300 billion square feet left over. Why we could all fit in the city of Jacksonville Florida and still have room left over. Overpopulation is not a problem, greed and food distribution is. Don’t blame the unborn child for greed and poor food distribution.
People will say that we have no right to bring handicapped children into the world. In one sense we don’t. We don’t have the right to expose them to harmful chemicals and drugs or violence of any kind, that may do damage to the child. But God has every right to bring a handicapped child into the world. It is His prerogative. he is the Potter we are the clay.
Isa 45:11 Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: "Will you question me about my children, or command me concerning the work of my hands?
It is our responsibility to be a neighbor to that child to love that child. A special needs child gives us all a chance to love as God loves....unconditionally. Further, we should all consider how we were all born with the handicap of sin, but that didn’t stop Jesus from loving us. He sacrificed everything for our handicap. What are we willing to sacrifice for others?
What about birth control? Shouldn’t we be wise in the planning of our families. After all, God has told us to be good stewards of the earth. Shouldn’t we be able to take care of our own personal goals before starting a family? It’s not easy taking care of children when they seem to come one right after the other. We can’t afford children right now.
You know what intrigues me about these arguments? They are so new to the church and yet so warmly embraced. Doesn’t that scare you a little? Birth control was unacceptable in the church until 1930. Until that time the church embraced the apostolic teaching, the biblical teaching that children are a heritage from the Lord. That He knows us before He forms us.
Ps 127:3 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Jer 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations."
For 1930 years we believed that, what changed? Did the Holy Spirit get wiser? Did the church get a newer and better revelation from God? What made us think that children were no longer a blessing from God? If you know anything about history you know that the Scopes trial had taken place shortly before this “acceptance” of birth control.
The Scopes trial basically legitimized the theory of evolution in the minds of the American public and the world. We bought it and continue to buy it hook, line, and sinker. Think it through. If we all emerged from a swamp, if we are all here by accident, then where is the specialness between God and man?
It’s a big difference preventing a hunk of muck from entering the world than something crafted in the image of God. Furthermore, if we are all here by chance, then what’s wrong with trying to clean the swamp up a little bit? You know do a little genetic engineering? Wouldn’t the swamp be a nicer place without the Jews? Without the handicapped? Without senior citizens?
Be careful, be very careful, because when one part of the swamp is cleaned up.....they may come looking at your part of the swamp.
Think about this. Man is created in God’s image. Everyone of us is different, everyone of us a part of the mosaic on the face of God. When we start to abort babies and use birth control, we are doing our own plastic surgery on the face of God. A little bit of His image is missing.
This battle for the unborn began in earnest when the church strayed away from the idea of Scripture alone. This ushered in the age of reason and reason was elevated over the Word of God.
This paved the way for the acceptance of evolution, which opened the door to eugenics, which opened the door to birth control, which opened the door to abortion, which is opening the door to euthanasia, and assisted suicide.
Just this past Tuesday the Supreme court upheld the Oregon bill that legalizes assisted suicide! The lid of pandora’s box of biotechnology for spare parts and even spare human beings through the process of cloning is slowly being pried open and I don’t think we can even imagine what this is going to bring!
Personally, I believe it will bring the end, and I rejoice in that, but I am also pained for those who will be taken in by these last ditch scientific signs and wonders. Those who will finally be swayed that there is no God but man.
And do you see our part in all of this as the church? What do we have to do? What is our responsibility? Our responsibility is to get back to the basics of the early church. The basics that Luther and other reformers sought to restore. Scripture alone!
We must hold to the inerrancy of Scripture! This Word is truth. And if it is truth we must believe it and act on it accordingly. We must believe that we are special in the eyes of God, created in His image. We must believe that children are a blessing a reward from God, not some sort of a curse!
We must believe that all life is precious because God creates it! And life was so special to God that He sent His only Son to die on the cross to redeem it. To purchase it back from the devil. You are special to God! He crafted you and He loved you so much He died for you!
And it doesn’t matter what sin or sins you have committed. He paid for them all! There is no sin that He will not forgive except the sin of refusing to repent. So repent, admit your sinfulness, allow the Holy Spirit to give you godly sorrow over your sins and then come to Jesus to receive His unconditional forgiveness. Let Him remove your sins, let Him blot them out forever.
I don’t care what your sin is, bring it to Jesus today, confess it and receive His forgiveness. Morgan Cryar came out with a song several years ago that is the sum of the matter, let these words minister to you this morning as you release your sin and guilt to Jesus.
It happened so long ago And I cried out for mercy back then.
I plead the blood of Jesus Begged him to forgive my sin.
But I still can't forget it It just won't go away.
So I wept again, "Lord wash my sin," But this is all He'd say,
Chorus:
What sin, what sin? Well that's as far away as the east is from the west.
What sin, what sin? It was gone the very minute you confessed Buried in the sea of forgetfulness.
The heaviest thing you'll carry Is a load of guilt and shame.
You were never meant to bear them So let them go in Jesus name.
Our God is slow to anger Quick to forgive our sin
So let Him put them under the blood Don't bring them up again.
Cause He'll just say, (Chorus)
Lord, please deliver me from my accusing memory. Nothing makes me weak this way, then when I hear you say, (Chorus)
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