Responding to 40 Years of Legal Abortion

Please go to the Pines Baptist Church media link http://www.pinesbaptistchurch.org/media and listen to the message entitled "Responding to 40 Years of Legal Abortion" I gave on Sunday January 27, 2013. (Click "James McGarvey - Sanctity of Life" and download or listen online)

Here's a part of the message,
"I want to acknowledge that I understand that abortion is a controversial subject and may even be difficult, perhaps even painful for some to think about...As followers of Jesus Christ, we must be willing to address this subject from the authority of Scripture. But, as we take this journey, we must do so in the context of two very important Biblical truths...we must communicate what God says about abortion in the context of God's grace and God's truth...

We will never understand God's grace apart from God's truth. But God's truth will always lead us to God's grace. And as we begin this morning, let me impress this upon you. If you life has been touched by an abortion, while you cannot escape the truth about abortion, nor some of the consequences of your abortion, please know that there is forgiveness, there is healing and restoration in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is a way to resolve the guilt, shame and hurt that abortion will bring to the human experience. And I want you to know that you are in the right place to hear that Good News. If your life has been touched by an abortion in any way, you are in a safe place in this church. No one is here to condemn or judge you. On the contrary, we are here to extend love and compassion and a message of forgiveness, restoration and hope, available to you because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on your behalf. We believe the gospel is the solution to America's abortion crisis...

The Gospel is our worldview. That's why abortion  is a gospel issue. God created man in His image and likeness for his purposes. And because He values each human life, He sent His Son to the cross in an obedient act of sacrificial love to pay the penalty for our sin, that by faith we might be forgiven, justified and adopted into His family where we will spend eternity in the presence of He who is both our Creator and our Savior!...

This mindset [humanism & Darwinian evolution] not only denies the inherent value of each human life but it denies any notion of purpose to his existence. After all, if man is the product of random chance he exists in the absence of any transcendent truth or moral compass that would assign purpose and meaning to his life. This worldview has had a significant impact on the fate of the unborn...

When man is considered to be nothing more than the product of a meaningless, random evolutionary process over billions of years or the result of a cosmic accident - when he is no longer assigned the intrinsic worth given to him by His Creator, he therefore becomes expendable in the struggle of the survival of the fittest. Might becomes right.

And when the Supreme Court gave women the right to kill their unborn children the inevitable has taken place. The stronger, in every case the mother, has used her power to take the life of the weaker, her unborn child, allowing millions of mothers and fathers to sacrificed their own posterity to further their own convenience. The denial of transcendent truth has come at a very high price to our society. When man becomes his own god, all hell breaks loose in society and the civility of a civilization is lost...

'A propitiation is a blood sacrifice that covers sin, so that God’s wrath and judgment will be averted! You see, Jesus died in our place. He paid the penalty for our sins - your sin and my sin, any and all sin - the sin of abortion, the sin of pushing a girlfriend, wife or daughter or granddaughter into an abortion; the sin of paying for an abortion; the sin of performing an abortion; the sin of doing nothing about abortion - it matters not what sin it is. We can be forgiven and justified, declared righteous in God's sight, our sin no longer being held against us...

On January 20, 2011, Rev. Flip Benham of Operation Save America, issued the following statement in a press release.

"Abortion will come to an end when the Church of Jesus Christ makes up her mind it will come to an end - not a second sooner. The responsibility for ending abortion in America rests squarely upon the shoulders of the Church of Jesus Christ."

Abortion, the Devil & the Church

I gave the morning message at First Baptist Church of Stuart this morning at their annual Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. Dr. Darrel Orman, Senior Pastor, has a heart for the unborn and the plight of the post-abortive.

I spoke on "Abortion, the Devil & the Church - Exposing the Spiritual Forces Behind Abortion," and witnessed First Baptist's support of the ministry of CareNet Pregnancy Services of the Treasure Coast that operates two pregnancy resource centers in the area as well as an abortion recovery ministry.

Abortion has Satan's fingerprints all over it. Jesus said as much in John 8:44, when he identified the devil as a "murderer," a "liar and father of lies." He is unmistakably the Architect of Abortion.

With the deaths of 55 million pre-born children in America over the last forty years, the devil has proved to be very successful in carrying out his agenda, which Jesus identified in John 10:10 - "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy." It should be apparent that abortion is a Satanic enterprise.

If abortion is first and foremost a diabolical plot, then the church is the only organism (institution) spiritually equipped to engage the spiritual forces behind abortion. It must, therefore, step up and take the lead in the effort to end abortion.

My message to First Baptist Church acknowledged that abortion is often a complex issue for those facing an unplanned or crisis pregnancy, and demands a practical and compassionate response by the church. There is a way to resolve the guilt, shame and hurt that abortion brings to the human experience, for there is forgiveness, healing and restoration for the post-abortive in Jesus Christ.

Ultimately, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the solution to America’s abortion crisis. Innocent blood has polluted the land and profaned the name of the Lord, but there is a greater blood shed at Mount Calvary that can transform the heart of a mother so she will choose life for her child, that can cleanse the guilty, forgive, heal and restore those involved in abortion.

What America needs to hear is God’s truth about abortion wrapped in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what I had the privilege to share with First Baptist Church of Stuart this morning.

Christ the LIfe - A B Simpson

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"Raised With Christ"

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"Dead to Sin"

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"Crucified With Christ"

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He Died a Person Not a Casualty

Earlier tonight I preached a Sanctity of Human Life message, "The Sanctity of the Unborn" at New Life Romanian Baptist Church in Hollywood (Abortion was legalized in Romania in December 1989).

After reviewing the  Biblical accounts of the personhood of John the Baptist (Luke 1:15), Isaiah (Isaiah 49:1), the Apostle Paul (Galatians 1:15), and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5), I quoted Douglas Erlandson (Abortion: Answering the Arguments),

“God deals with the lives [of these men] from conception to adulthood. The Bible does not appear to recognize a special change in God’s dealings with man at birth. God values each of the above men while he is still in the womb – knows him, chooses him, shapes him.”   

I continued,

"...the  Biblical evidence is very clear. The unborn are created by God and for God. They were created in His image and they are recognized by God as distinct and unique persons from the moment of conception." 

After reviewing the scientific evidence for human life at conception, I said,

"Whether you approach the issue of the personhood of the unborn from a Biblical point of view - and we must - or from a purely scientific or biological perspective, the inescapable conclusion is that life within the womb is human life, a distinct person, worthy of protection." 

Later in the evening, I watched this moving video testimony someone had posted on Facebook. His parents CHOSE to be pro-life, allowing this precious PERSON to bless their lives, knowing their child, even if born alive, would have a very brief life. Their baby was five days old when he succumbed to severe medical difficulties...but died loved, cherished and with dignity.

Thomas Paine one of the authors of the Constitution wrote (The Rights of Man),  

“...All men are born equal and with equal natural rights, in the same manner as if posterity had been continued by creation instead of generation, the latter being only the mode by which the former is carried forward; and consequently every child born into the world must be considered as deriving its existence from God. The world is as new to him as it was to the first man that existed and his natural right in it is of the same kind.”  

You can watch the moving testimony of these parents, who perhaps unknowingly, lived out Thomas Paine's words. 

http://www.godvine.com/Parents-Refuse-to-Abort-Their-Sick-Baby-These-Are-His-Precious-Last-Moments-2401.html#.ULvsJq2iNKi.facebook