They Shed Innocent Blood

Good morning. You heard the good news that a baby was saved yesterday down in Louisville, amen? Let's give glory to God. Now let me ask you, how do you think that baby was saved? Somebody yell out. The gospel, by who doing it? Who? Who preached? What preaching caused her to turn away? It wasn't mine. It was a woman there with her children. And she called out to the woman, and she pleaded with her not to kill her baby. And I'm telling you, women, you have a role to play in this work. And that woman that was there, that woman that was there with her children, God used to turn the hearts, the heart of that young mother to herself and away from that place. And so you have an important role to play there. It's incredible.

She said one thing, and God can do with one word what would take a million years for us to do if we tried it in our strategies. God changes hearts. So I want to start this morning to say that we are in week three of our sermon series called Stand in the Gap. It's the call of the church to defend the unborn. And today what we're doing is we're going to be seeking God's help. in His Word, through His Word, in understanding exactly what it is, what the true nature of abortion is. What is the true nature of this enemy that we face? It is crucial we understand the nature of exactly what it is we're facing as a church if we're going to be able to defeat it. You cannot defeat the enemy unless you can first define the enemy, right?

And so when we speak of the issue of abortion in our nation, it is imperative on us as Christians to have an absolute, 100% sure, rock-solid, unflinching foundation, a biblical and complete definition of what abortion really is. Because the world has an unflinching, 100% sure, rock-solid foundation of what abortion is, right? They know what their commitments are. And so what is abortion? The pro-life movement today, sadly, for many years, has failed to acknowledge in large part the very plain and simple reality that abortion is murder. Because as soon as you use the word murder, what you're doing is you're attaching morality to it. But that is what abortion is, is it is murder. And so often when we speak of the sin of abortion, we evaluate it, even as Christians, based on human perspective. And yet when Scripture presents the sin of the murder of children made in the image of God, it speaks of it from God's vantage point. And so this leads us to our ultimate question in understanding what it is we're facing, the true nature of abortion. Not as we think about it, not as the world thinks about it,

Not even how we are taught to believe it simply because it was what was handed down to us, but as God sees it and views it. How does God view the sin of abortion? How does he look at it? Well, let me ask you this. How does our culture view the sin of abortion? Well, number one, they don't view it as sin. What do they view it as? Freedom. A woman's right to choose. Health care. Environmental stewardship, necessary to preserve our planet from overpopulation. Birth control, as a form of birth control. The world has its talking points. And sadly, Christians have no foundation today to be able to defend and give a defense or a reason why we believe that it's sin. And that's a failure of pastors today. That's a failure of men like myself.

of parents. That's a failure of us as Christians to have a sure foundation for what God says in His Word. And so we're not going to allow that to continue any longer. The work of pastors and teachers is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry so that you men and women have the tools that you need to be able to walk into a conversation with your neighbor or your co-worker or your family member. Or heaven forbid, someone who is considering this and be able to, with love and with boldness and confidence, give them the word of life. And that's what we're going to do today. How does God view the sin of abortion? Let's stand now to hear God speak to us from his word. We're going to be studying Psalm 106, verses 35 to 39. This is the word of God, and it is eternally true. But they mingled with the nations and learned their practices.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. How does God view the sin of abortion? Not how we view it, not what we think about it, not how it makes us feel, not our own sense of right and wrong and what's loving and what's caring and what's patient and what's kind and what's best for the woman and the most strategic way to get people on board. How does God view the sin of abortion? If we're going to claim the name of Jesus Christ, we should claim his thoughts. We should claim what he thinks. What's very clear, the first point is this. Abortion, very simply, is the shedding of innocent blood. That is what it is. Look at what our text says here in verse 38. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters. And so the psalmist in this passage describes the brutal killing of their own sons and daughters.

as the shedding of innocent blood. Now what is that? What is the shedding of innocent blood? Well, we need to understand that, but we also need to understand an important foundational truth before we can even answer that question. That's how far off the reservation we've gotten today. We need to understand what it means to be made in the image of God. The Bible teaches that man is made in the image and likeness of God. He has a dignity, a value, and worth as a human being by his essence. Man bears God's image. Man, meaning man, meaning male and female, is the crown of God's creation.

And that means that God has assigned a special dignity and value on human beings that he did not assign to the rest of his creation. This doctrine is one that's called the doctrine of the imago Dei, for any of you who love Latin. The imago Dei, the image of God. The doctrine of the imago Dei flies directly in the face, I want you to see this, of our secular society. Our culture today denies utterly and completely this reality of the image of God in all mankind. The world denies that man bears God's image. It does. It just does. And particularly in one of two ways. Number one, the first way that the world denies that man is made in the image of God is they deny the existence of God himself.

and therefore deny God's image in man. And instead what they do is they arbitrarily assign value and worth to certain classes of human beings based on subjective standards of morality. This is atheism, brothers and sisters. Atheism says there is no God, we're just matter and motion, we are the product of chance and time, and therefore it is people, not God, who get to determine who is valuable and who is inferior. We see this play out through history, right? You read history books. You look at the life of Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin was not a believer. Joseph Stalin was completely godless and atheistic in his worldview. And what that did is that allowed him, not God, to be the determiner of who had value and who didn't.

If you were a peasant, you had no value. There was a classism. What about Hitler? You see that. Everybody loves to use Hitler for everything today. Even when I say the word Hitler, I don't even want to say it because it's a cheap way of making a point. But brothers and sisters, you look at what the Holocaust produced. And what it produced was over 6 million Jews murdered. someone decided on their basis and not on the living God's that they would arbitrarily determine who had value and who did not. You look at Mao. You look at all of these men. You could go on and on and on and on of the bloodshed that took place because they denied the existence of God and therefore denied God's image in man. It always happens. And if you point to me at...

At an atheistic country like Sweden or Norway, I just say give it time. Give it time. They deny the existence of God himself and therefore deny God's image in man. Number two, second way that God's image in man is denied today is this. The world denies God's image by assigning it all to creation, to all of creation. Where do we see this today? Well, this is environmentalism. Abortion and environmentalism, if you are a, I would call religious environmentalist, if you've ever been in a conversation with someone who greatly cares about the environment, what they will tell you is abortion is a form of population control. Why? To help preserve Mother Earth. Because creation...

The plant has as much value, as much image of God as you do. And so we ought not to hurt it. We ought to spare it. We ought not to sin against Mother Earth. Where else do we see this? Well, this is also Hinduism. I have a great number of Hindu friends that I help in my time in banking. And so we talk quite a bit about religion and Christianity and spirituality. It's very insightful what you learn when you talk to them. To a Hindu, an honest practicing Hindu will say that everything in creation is God. Everything has divinity to it. And because of this, everything in the world is completely equal in value. That means the ant that's on the floor has just as much value and dignity and worth as I do.

That means the plant. That means the ground you walk on. Now, here's the problem with that philosophy and the philosophy with the environmentalists. If everything in the entire universe is equally valuable, then nothing is truly valuable. I want to give you a real-life example. One of the first times since I moved up here, when I went to an abortion clinic for the first time, I was encouraged to go by a brother in the Lord to preach and to offer help to the women and to the men who were with them to plead for the lives of these babies. I went there, and lo and behold, a car pulls up. Two women get out, and they're of Indian descent, and they look very confused. And they're confused because if you know the clinic that we go to on 16th Street, The entrance is on the back of the clinic. And so you can always tell when people are new and they haven't been there ever because they're like looking around. There's a door on the front, but it's not to that clinic. It's to some other part of the building. And so they're wandering around and they're looking. And so we call and we say, can we help you with something? Is there something you need help with? Are you here looking for the women's clinic? And they said, yeah, yeah, we are.

I say, well, we can help. Come on over here. And so we talk, and we say, are you here for an abortion? And she says, and there was a mother and her daughter, and the mother could not speak English. And so I'm thinking the daughter's here for an abortion. Well, it's actually the mother that's here, and the daughter's a teenager. The mother is getting the abortion, but the daughter could speak English. So we talk, and I explain to her. and pleaded with her to tell her mom, to explain to her mom what is actually happening and to choose life, to not choose death. Here's what it is. It's murder. And it's wrong. And this is why. And once we got to the part where I said, she's translating, right? Once we got to the part where, and we're about this far from one another, we're talking. And once she got to the part where I said, your baby is made in God's image. And so it has a special value.

She stopped and she said, what do you mean made in God's image? This is the teenager. And I say, it means that unlike anything else in this world, the plants and everything, and the animals, that baby has more value than those things. And so we need to protect it together. We want to help you with that. And she goes, no, no, no, no. We don't believe that. We don't believe that that baby is more special. than the animals. We're Hindu, is what she said. We believe that everything has equal value, equal dignity. And guess what? She walked in to the clinic to kill her baby. If everything bears God's image, nothing bears God's image and nothing has true value. The truth is this, every human being from the moment of conception bears the image of God, which means that we declare that the lives of all children, born, pre-born, are sacred to God, and therefore they are worthy of a defense. This is the Christian witness. For 2,000 years, move back to the Israelites. This was what God required of the Israelites. He said, if you do justice and mercy, if you help and defend the rights of the poor and the afflicted,

I will bless you. But if you fail to do so, watch out. And abortion is the brutal murder of the most defenseless among us. Abortion is the shedding of innocent blood. And God hates the shedding of innocent blood. He says so all through His Word. Listen to how seriously God treats the murder of His image bearers. Genesis 9.6, it's not on the screen, but listen. Genesis 9, 6. He says this, Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. Listen to that again. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God he made man. God hates the shedding of innocent blood. Matter of fact, God loves life so much. He loves image bearers that he is willing to defend them and he requires capital punishment for the one who takes advantage and murders them. That is how much God loves life is he's willing to kill for it. God hates the shedding of innocent blood. Question, if it's true,

That man does bear the image of God. Why are so many in our society committed to the right of slaughtering them in the womb? Is it because they're ignorant of the fact that it's a baby? That is what many in the pro-life movement today will have you believe. They will say that the primary reason abortion exists in our nation still today is due to a lack of information. on the biology of the baby. And so what we need to do is we need to convince these women who are on the brink of making an awful choice that what is in their womb is in fact a human life. And then they won't want to get an abortion. Because what thinking human mother or father would actually take the life of their own child, if they knew that this fetus in the womb was really a baby. Here's the problem with that. They know it's a baby. I promise you. Come down to the mill with me, and you'll see, you'll hear the responses that I hear. They know it's a baby. Abortion doesn't continue to exist in our nation due to a lack of information. It exists because of sin.

And so the ending of abortion in our nation requires more than a good biology teacher, people. Why? Because they know it's a baby. The mother that goes into that mill. The father who dropped her off at the door. The clinic volunteer who leads the mother into the slaughterhouse. The woman at the front desk who takes the blood money. All the other moms in the room sitting, waiting. And yes, the abortionist in the operating room with his forceps ready to tear his defenseless and helpless victim limb from limb, literally. All of them know the undeniable reality that this is a baby. Guys, this is not rocket science. And yet still...

all of them are putting their hands to this evil of shedding the innocent blood of a precious little baby who from conception bears God's image. And we have to ask ourselves, brothers and sisters, why? Why is that? Why would anyone do such a thing? If you know it's a baby and you're a mother and it's instinctive in you as a mother to protect, to nurture, to care for, why would you do it? Why would you do it as a father? Why would you do it as a doctor? You took an oath to protect and defend and preserve life. Why would any mother say what so many down at the mill when I go and when other brothers and sisters go with me say this? When we go out there, what do we do? We don't tell the women, you're awful, you're a horrible person, you're going to hell, we hope you rot. We do warn them. What we say, is please don't kill your child. You're a mommy right now. Please don't do it. You're about to murder your own child. God says we're not to murder. You're going to give an account before God today. We're willing to help you with anything that you need. If it's financial, if you need adoption services, we'll try to figure that out for you. We will do what we can to figure this out. You don't have to go through with this. We are here because we love you.

Please don't care your baby. It's a baby and you're about to murder your own son or daughter. And you know what they say? I know it is. I don't care. That is what they say. I have heard it multiple times over and over and over. They don't say, no, it's not a baby. It's a clump of cells. They say, I know it is and I don't care. You don't understand what I'm going through. You don't understand what I'm having to give up to. I know it is and I don't care. There's something more important. And this baby is getting in the way. This baby is posing a threat to what I want. And that is what the fathers say too. Why is that? Why is that the response? It's not the response that we would expect. It doesn't, you know, common sense. It's not common sense. Why is that? Because the shedding of innocent blood.

always has, listen, always has a religious motivation. There is a religious motivation because at the heart of the shedding of innocent blood is a religious commitment. And with every religious commitment, there comes worship. This is the second thing to realize, brothers and sisters, is that abortion not only is the shedding of innocent blood, but abortion is the bloody ritual of child sacrifice. This sin of shedding of innocent blood is so horrid and so wicked that the Bible here actually describes the very practice itself as demonic idol worship. Look at verse 37 and 38. It says, innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, what? Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. And before that, they sacrificed. That's a religious word. It's not a clinical medical word. God could have found a clinical term to use to describe this. It's a religious word. Sacrificed their sons and daughters to the demons.

The sin being described here isn't just murder. It is murder, but it is murder of the worst kind. It is a religiously rebellious and demonic evil. I did not make that up. I would never make something like that up. It sounds crazy, but here it is in God's Word. What are you going to do about that? I would never say this unless this was here, and neither would you. If you're fighting in your conscience and in your mind, you're fighting with God. That is what he says. God's people in ancient Israel, they had adopted the religious practice of the pagan nations. And the sin that they consistently were engaged in was the Canaanite ritual of Moloch or Moloch worship. Now what is Moloch worship? Moloch worship was idol worship in Canaan.

that included its ritual, in its ritual was child sacrifice, or what scripture refers to as passing the children through the fire. The idol of Malik, what it was, just to give you a picture of it, is it was a giant statue, and if you get a chance, I wish I could put something on the screen to show you, because it visualizes the whole thing. It is a giant idol statue of a man with a head of a bull. And each idol had a hole inside of the middle, inside of the abdomen. And outstretched forearms like this, and they had kind of a ramp in the hole inside there. And what would happen is a fire would be lit in or around the statue, and what the worshipers would do is the father and the mother, they would take...

their infant child, son or daughter, and they would put that child inside of that hole, and the fires would consume the child and literally burn the child alive. What in the world was their reason for doing this? Well, we all know through the process of evolution that we advanced and so did our minds, and so they were just stupid, idiot, Neanderthal-like people who didn't think. and realized that, you know, that was just ridiculous. We just don't do that. Nobody does that. Why would they do that? That's our thinking right now. Well, I would never do that. The couple who sacrificed their infant on the altars of Moloch, what they believed is that this god, Moloch, would ensure financial prosperity for the family and future favor and peace toward them. That was the motivation for that worship.

Of the pagan nations. And there were similar practices throughout the world. This was Moloch worship. And it is precisely the thing God warns his people against in Leviticus. Leviticus 20. You don't have to turn there, but I want to read to you what God says about this kind of worship to his people. Leviticus 20, chapter 1 to 5. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, You shall say to the sons of Israel, any man from the sons of Israel or from the aliens sojourning in Israel who gives any of his offspring to Moloch shall surely be put to death. The people of the land shall stone him with stones. I will also set my face against that man and will cut him off from among his people because he has given some of his offspring.

so as to defile my sanctuary and to profane my holy name. If the people of the land, however, should ever disregard that man when he gives any of his offspring to Moloch, so as not to put him to death, then I myself will set my face against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both him and those who play the harlot after him by playing the harlot after Moloch. This is the sin of child sacrifice. Offering your son or daughter to a false god in exchange for future prosperity, security, and peace. And you say, well, I'm glad that in the 21st century, child sacrifice has been done away with.

because nobody in their right mind would do that today. No one would take their one-year-old or their six-months-old or two-month-old and put them through a fire. No one would do such a thing. No one is that stupid or that crazy. Where is child sacrifice happening today? Where is it happening? It is happening outside of the temple of Planned Parenthood. Do you see this? It's happening outside of the temple of Planned Parenthood. We're more sophisticated about how we go about it. The same lies that led the ancient peoples to slaughter their own children are the same lies that Satan uses today. They're the exact same. They're repackaged and they're more sophisticated. But they're the same thing. We must see abortion as God sees it. It is the murderous...

sin of child sacrifice. It is the shedding of innocent blood. You know, I was down at the abortion clinic in Louisville to be with some brothers and sisters down there at a church, and as I was down there, there were 15, almost 15 escorts. We call them death escorts. They had orange vests on, and they're volunteers, and their job is to escort the women into the clinic so that they can do their deed. We're speaking to them. And you know, one thing just occurred to me. Who should be holding these signs that show what's really going on? Not us. They should. They should be holding the signs. They are there religiously every morning at, I think it's 6 a.m. And the appointments don't start until 8. There's never been a violent act there. There's never been threats of violence ever there. Don't believe that.

Don't believe what the world tells you. They're there religiously because they have a commitment to be priests at the altar of Moloch. But they don't have the courage that those in the ancient world have because they're all about hiding it. Just because it's hidden doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It exists today. The arguments that are used, think about this. They sacrificed their children on the altar of their idol, right? Back then. For what? Financial prosperity? For peace? For security? For blessing? Let's move to abortion. 21st century, we all get on Facebook America. We're sophisticated. Never seen anybody bow down physically to a graven image. And here we are.

And what do we hear? What are the arguments for abortion? They're the exact same. Why are you getting an abortion? Because I have a future that I'm looking forward to. I don't want this baby to get in the way. I'm not ready to be a mom yet. And if I have this baby, it will threaten my financial prosperity. Does that sound familiar to you? You say, why else? Better if I do that. I'm not ready. Not only am I not ready, I need security. The man who I was with, he's abandoned me. This will help me feel more secure. I can't raise this child on my own. What is the idol? The idols are the same. They just don't. They're more sophisticated and they don't.

look as ridiculous to us today because our culture has bought into the lie. The idols that the children today are sacrificed on is the altar of convenience, security, financial prosperity. And we say, well, it's not a born child yet, so it's not as bad. And the people in Canaan and the Israelites, I mean, At least it was before the baby was born. I mean, that would be really, really bad. And I go, there you go. There you go. What happened to allowing God to define the nature of the enemy? Do you know why the pro-life movement is an utter failure? And it truly is. It's because the pro-life movement has failed, as many have said, many godly men have rightly pointed out, has failed to stand on the word of God.

They fail to call abortion what it actually is, murder. And why would it end? Why would it end at all? Why would anybody want to get rid of anything that you've already refused to rightly define? And so we do this thing where it's, well, you know, 23 weeks is a little bit much, because by that time the baby has fingernails, and there's all this stuff, and it's just this big game that we play. And as Christians, we play the same game. You never have to see the baby die, do you? You never have to see the baby die. You don't even have to see the woman walk into the door. And you can go to the place where they serve breakfast right next door and not even bat an eye. You all do it. I do it. It is the shedding of innocent blood. And God said it is so prevalent that the very land in the nation is polluted with the blood of these precious babies. That's what his word says. In verse 38, it says that they sacrificed their own sons and daughters to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood. It was covered in blood. How much blood has been spilt over the last 40 years? 50 million babies.

And you and I and our mother and father and our grandparents and those before them never heard a sound. But let me tell you, their blood is not silent. This leads us to the final point. Innocent blood has a voice. Innocent blood has a voice. In the book of Genesis, you'll remember when Cain, out of jealousy and out of hatred, he went out. And he went into the field and his younger brother Abel was there and he slaughtered him. Remember what the Lord said to Cain after he murdered Abel. He says this, Genesis 4, 9. Then the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. What's the famous line? Am I my brother's keeper? Whose job is it to care for my brother? And God said this.

What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. God didn't say that he saw the cry. He said that he heard the cry. Innocent blood has a voice. And the innocent blood of 50 babies slaughtered in their mother's wombs in our nation creates a shrieking, horrific, wailing cry that no one on this earth hears. Except God. God hears. Whether or not your heart is callous to the point where you just don't give a rip that we're going through this series and you just can't wait until we get done with this. God cares. Because every drop of blood, God keeps track of. You may not. I may not. But God does. God hears the cry of these little ones. And God will not ignore their voices.

The blood of these innocent little babies, it carries with it a message. And that message is vengeance. You remember in Revelation where in heaven you hear the martyrs, right? The men and women who had been martyred. And they say, they cry out. What do they say? They say, how long, oh Lord, will you allow our blood to go without being avenged? This is what they cry out. How long? God heard the cry. And he hears the cry of each of these little ones. Though human ears cannot hear it, the blood of these children screams to God for vengeance against those who are guilty of shedding it. And this is the God of love that Scripture speaks. Don't ever allow the world or your sinful heart, like mine is, convince you or trick you into thinking that this is opposed to God's love. It is not.

is a God of vengeance because He loves the weak. He loves the helpless. He loves those who can't defend themselves. That's who God is a champion of. If we were God, we would pick the strong. We would oppress the weak. We would use our authority to oppress the helpless. And God is not like that. God is a God of love. and therefore he's a God of vengeance. Therefore, he will not let it go by unnoticed. Who is committing this evil in our nation today? Who is it? You say, well, that's obvious. It's unbelievers. After all, the people that are going in here, I mean, how could you do this? It's unbelievers because after all, the person that I described that God used to save, he wasn't a believer.

You know, it's the secular godless world. It's the people who, you know, they're in the public school system and they don't know God and on and on and on. And I say, no. You know whose hands are stained with the blood of their own sons and daughters? The church. Look at the text. Verse 35. What does it say? But they mingled. Who's they? God's people. But they mingled with the nations and learned their practices. God's people have blood on their hands. God's people have sacrificed. We've sacrificed our own sons and daughters on the altar of Moloch. God's people are guilty of shedding innocent blood, whether it is by action or inaction. Our hand is in this. We are just as much responsible.

as much to answer to God for, if not more, because God has given us the light of his gospel. Let me make it personal. Let me make it real. The baby that was saved yesterday that we gave God thanks for, when we came to her and we offered her help and we said, praise God, we're very happy. And it's hard not to crowd when you have, it's like there's six of us and you know, it's like the people were just like, okay, you know, I... I just walked out of here and I'm shocked and all of this and I'm confused. And now there's a bunch of people around like I'm a celebrity. And so we had to pull back and self-control. But you're excited because that baby is going to be excited one day. And we say, is there anything we can help you with? Do you need money? What can we help with? How can we love you right now? That's why we're here. And she said,

No, you guys are good. You guys are good. I'm good. When I go back to my church, they'll give me the help that they need on Sunday. Now, that does not get rid of the joy of God working through someone who is a part of His people. That doesn't get rid of the joy. God may use, and I pray God uses it, to bring her to a true knowledge. and to grow her into the knowledge of God and Jesus Christ. Hallelujah! And yet, we have to acknowledge the reality, she was one of God's people, at least visibly. The man who came up and the baby, the whole testimony that we explained to you guys a couple weeks ago, guess what? That man grew up in the church. The majority of the people in this nation still in some way claim some kind of...

allegiance or affiliation with Christianity. And yet it is us who have our hand in this. I think it's always right to believe that the church is who leads the world. It's never the world who leads the church. And so if the world is the way it is, we have to ask, what are we like? They follow. When we use our special place in God's kingdom as as the church, and He's given us authority and He commands us to preach His gospel and that He's going to make the nations will come to know Him. He's given us this firepower and yet when we use it to indulge our lusts, to sit down and be asleep at the wheel, the church is leading the culture in that. And the proof, you just have to look. There is no outcry. There's no outcry from God's people.

We could end abortion in this nation in a second. 60-75% I think still claim affiliation with Christianity. In some way, Roman Catholic included, we could end it in a second. But who would we be prosecuting? Ourselves. Innocent blood has a voice. God hears it. And God in his kindness has not completely wiped our nation out. as we deserve. We talk all the time about, look at ISIS and look at how they're beheading Christians. And I say, yeah, you know who else is beheading? We are. The amount of blood that we shed and murder that we partake in as a society and as a nation, we are bloodthirsty. It dwarfs ISIS. It dwarfs the Holocaust. If you see as God sees and not as your carnal mind wants to see it.

If you don't see it as God sees it, it's crazy. It's absolutely crazy to think the way we're talking now. But God is true and every man a liar. Final thing. So some application. Well, first, it is not simply those, as we're saying, who shed innocent blood who are guilty before God. Blood guilt is also assigned to those who demonstrate, listen, to those who demonstrate an attitude of apathy or indifference toward the evil. Remember what Leviticus said. He gave the punishment for those who offer their children as Moloch. He says, this has got to stop. You've got to put a stop to it now. You need to punish the one who does it because it will spread like wildfire. And we go, okay, so don't do it. Got it. If the people of the land, however, should ever disregard that man whenever he gives any of his offspring, so as to not act, so as to not intervene, then I myself will set my face against the one who committed this wrong act. No, against you and I. And then he lumps us in the category and says, we're the ones who are playing the harlot. We are the ones who are participating. They're all the same to God.

Why would God have any reason to show mercy to those who know the truth, who believe it, who are one of His children and are supposed to love what He loves and hates what He hates, and we don't do anything about it? Why would He show us mercy? Don't allow your heart to become calloused against this. Don't. How many warnings from God do you need? I don't mean you need to walk around feeling sad all the time and hopeless and depressed. No, the gospel's going forth. Babies are being saved. God's kingdom's going forth. And it always goes forth in the midst of evil. And so we can be hopeful and we can rejoice and know that God will do away. The last enemy scripture says to be done away with is death. It's going to be done someday. We win, but we're not done. God's not done with us yet.

And so you have 40 years the church in America has sat idly by while we offer our own sons and daughters as a sacrifice to be slaughtered on the altars of our idols today, of convenience and autonomy and individuality and feminism. Feminism says that the woman, that for freedom to exist for you as a woman, listen women, feminism will tell you that for freedom to exist for you as a woman, you must be free from your reproductive system's biological design. In other words, the womb is a curse. If you read books from honest feminists, I can give you some of them. They're kind of boring.

But what they say, the honest ones will say, the womb is a curse. And it's our job to free other women from the consequences of the womb. That is how Christians have gotten to the point where we're sacrificing our own children. It's because we have started to buy into the lies of the culture. And we wonder why God doesn't bless us. I mean, why should God bless us? Seriously. Conclusion about this. Know this, that when innocent blood is shed, it cries out for vengeance. But thank God when Christ's blood was shed, it cries out for mercy. There is mercy through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. That is why we show up at the clinic. We don't show up to say, it's over for you. You're under God's vengeance. You have no hope.

And we're just here to tell you that. And that's it. That's the end of the story. That's part of it if there's no repentance. That's the part of it for everyone, for every sin. We're here to say, we want you to have life. We want you to have hope. We want you to know the joy of knowing God. The joy of knowing God. Can you imagine how thankful that man must be to know that he thought he was bringing his wife in? to get rid of another man's unfaithfulness, and then to find out later that the abortion clinic lied to him and his wife, and she wasn't six weeks pregnant, she was actually 13, and the baby was his. And he decided and became a man and got fired up and said, you know what, for once I'm going to actually take responsibility for something. And he said, let's go.

I'm going to take care of this. I'm going to raise this child as my own. And God blessed him, and he is now going to be the father and is the father of his own son. That's the mercy of Jesus Christ, the mercy of the shed blood. We're to pass it on. We're to share the love. And you don't have to go to an abortion clinic to be able to understand this. You can go to your coworker. You can go to, you just need to be ready, whatever is going on, and speak. Speak of God's truth. Speak of the mercies. You remember I said God hates the shedding of innocent blood so much that He's willing to kill for it, to protect it. God hates the sin of abortion so much that He sent His Son. He killed His own Son to save those who are committing it. You can be free.

And if you are here and you have given yourself to that sin as a woman, statistics say that there are always, in every church, and in my experience, there are women who have committed this evil and this sin. There's forgiveness and hope in Jesus Christ. There's no condemnation. God wants to use you to help other women. There's forgiveness and there's hope in Jesus Christ. And so the call is first to wake up, to actually think. like God thinks about this. To not simply breathe out the air of our culture, which says that this ain't no big deal, and it should be safe, rare, and legal. Wart removal, you don't hear an argument that wart removal should be safe, rare, and legal. Everybody knows it's a big deal. Don't believe the lies of the culture. Wake up. See in your life how you desire these idols.

And what you're willing to do in your life to get them. You may not have sacrificed your own son or daughter, but you may have sacrificed other things that God says you ought not to sacrifice. Your purity. Your love for Jesus Christ. Whatever it is. Call out to God and He will demonstrate His mercy to you. And be prepared to see God work. He is working. If you're bitter and you're unwilling, to get rid of that bitterness, you need to repent of that. You need to make it right. God hates. He hates sin. And abortion is a placeholder. And God loves righteousness and He loves sinners. And that's why He sent His Son and shed His own Son's blood so that we could be set free and so that we can have life in Jesus Christ and have it abundantly and so that we can pass that on. And so don't be hopeless by this. It's heavy stuff.

But you've got to get this in your system if you're going to care. And there's real hope. There's hope because we have the gospel and we are going to be victorious. Let's pray. God, we love you. And we know that your word says that you are a father to the fatherless, that you're a judge for the orphan and the widow and the stranger and the weak. And God, our hearts are so hard, Lord. We do not care. about the things you care about, God. Father, I pray that you'd forgive us for our callous and cold hearts. I pray that you'd soften them with the oil and wine of your Holy Spirit and that you would give us a desire to love and defend the cause of the afflicted, the unborn God. In whatever capacity that is, for some of us, Lord, it may mean showing up, God.

For some of us, it may simply mean stop looking at pornography. For others of us, Lord, it may be that we see children as a blessing rather than as a burden. Father, there are so many ways, God, that we can let this truth sink into our hearts. And I pray, God, that you would, by your Spirit, change us, God. Father, humble us. Renew our minds. Help us to think like Christians, Lord. Help us to love those who are deceived, Lord. Lord, these women are deceived. Help us to love them and have compassion on them, God, because we're just like them, God. We're not for your spirit. We pray that we would see in our nation, in our city, in our town, that abortion is just unthinkable, God. That we'd see it before we die. That we'd see it end by the...

the power of Jesus Christ, and that your kingdom would be established here, and that we would grow to love justice and mercy. Help us to do that now, in Jesus' name, amen.