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."