Sermon Cloud

They are precious in His sight.

Jesus loves the little children. The children’s song is true. All the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white. They are precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.

But you’d never know that we do. Not when you look at America today.

Do you remember when doctors had one over riding principle – Do no harm? Remember when everyone – and I mean everyone – thought every single life was precious? That life was sacred?

I remember when all of my friends lived in a house where there was a gun. And nobody ever used them. Most of the fathers were veterans. My uncle fought in WWII. He was so proud –and careful -- of his German lugar. I never took it to school for show and tell. Or for target practice. On people.

Didn’t we all know of a family with a special needs child, or physically handicapped, or Down’s Syndrome – and watched that family make unbelievable sacrifices for that child? Whatever it took. Because every single person – every single life -- was precious. Sacred.

What happened? What in the world happened? Imagine how we’d feel if we were suddenly translated from the world we grew up in to this very moment. Right from the 1950s, 60s or even the 70s – without the blurring process of gradual change. We were there. And, suddenly, we are here.

We’d be shocked. We’d think we had been transported somewhere else. Value of life degraded. A Marine who murdered his pregnant girl friend. Burned and buried her in his back yard. Their tiny unborn baby’s hand found in her remains.

A drug-crazed husband who threw his four little children off a bridge. A Texas woman who drowned her five children in the bathtub. The husband who killed his pregnant wife, weighted down her body and threw it into San Francisco bay. The remains -- of her and their baby -- later washed up on shore.

In virtually all of America’s central cities, women – strung out on crack cocaine – selling their bodies on the streets for more drugs – abandon their babies to intense suffering, starvation and even death.

Newborn babies found dead in dumpsters, even though well-advertised charities are willing to accept them with no questions asked.

Somehow, everything changed. Children seen by many as a burden, not a blessing. Or as pawns in a marital battle. Or sex objects to pedophiles. Or teachers – male and female -- seducing their students.

It’s everywhere. For many, other people are not really other people. They are objects to be used for our pleasure. Or production units to make us more money. Or votes to get us elected.

Obviously, things have changed. And the biggest thing our world has changed is its estimate of the value of each life. Life is cheap today. Very, very cheap.

I believe – truly believe -- that abortion made it that way. Abortion is the cause. And it will continue to be.

I want to contrast the value of a life in our society with God’s opinion. His view about life hasn’t changed. He created man in His image. Therefore, every act of murder is a monstrous sin against God. His view is eternal. We see it in Psalm 139. Please turn there.

Psalm 139:13-18. “For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. How precious to [a] me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with You.”

While preparing this sermon, I read an opinion piece by Alan Sears, a former federal prosecutor and,who is president of the Alliance Defense Fund.

He wrote that years ago, near the end of the semester, some college professors would fool around with their students, handing out a mock examination called "The Ultimate Final." Everyone knew it was a joke.

The test called for responses over-the-top essay topics covering every academic discipline like: "Astronomy: Define the universe, and give two examples." "History: Estimate the impact of human life. Use small words."

Ridiculous. Of course. But those "assignments" came to mind with the 35th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade.

About 48 million babies killed — more than the entire population of Canada. Greater than the population of 25 states combined. Numbers like that are mind-numbing. We can’t grasp them. Joseph Stalin said that a dozen deaths are a tragedy. A million deaths are a statistic.

Abortion is like a spiritual San Andreas Fault. We keep feeling the tremors. One day soon, the earthquake -- and the total collapse of our society -- will occur. And it WILL occur. Unless we remember what God says in Psalm 139. And what does God say?

1. We are all of us – each of us – God’s creation. Someone precious to Him. Someone who, in some special and mysterious way, bears a family resemblance to the Almighty. We must not trifle with that.

2. God’s creative process starts in the womb – actually before the womb. Your eyes saw my unformed body. Those words are among the most challenging and mind-boggling in all of the Bible.

3. It’s a person. A baby. A tiny human being. I don’t care where Mary slept, Mary did not have a little lamb. So, since when did a preborn baby come a fetus? On January 22, 1973.

4. Each baby is fearfully and wonderfully made. You’d expect that. Especially for a being created by God in His image. Special in his or her inmost being – body, mind, soul and spirit.

5. Even while the baby was invisable to us, hidden away in the womb, it was in plain sight of God. Your eyes saw my unformed body. Our heavenly father did not start his parenting relationship when we committed ourselves to His Son. It began when we were conceived. From that instant onward.

6. Furthermore, this passage says that each one of our days were ordained, set aside for special service to God. All of our deeds – good ones and bad – are already written in His fabulous heavenly book. That means each one of us is living our eternal life right now! We are none of us eternal. We had no pre-existance. But we are all immortal. We will all live forever. It’s just that we are now in the process of choosing where we will spend the rest of eternity. There are only two choices.

7. But we cannot ignore the challenging – and greatly encouraging – fact that all of our lives are already complete in God’s sight. That, in His eyes, each chapter is already written. Just waiting for us to see it happen.

We’ve ignored all that. Or, should I say, seven old men ignored all that in 1973. They listened to the plaintiff – whose case was largely funded by Playboy Magazine. God’s opinions were ignored. All of that wonderful, reassuring, loving, caring truth. Ignored. So for 35 years, we’ve been committing cultural suicide. And we are living with the consequences.

Have you every wondered why our government seems to eager to let 20 million illegal aliens into our country and make them citizens?

People who don’t know our language and actually oppose our culture? Poverty stricken, diseased, many of them criminal? Why? Because we’ve already killed two and a half times more of our own citizens!

Who is going to support Social Security and Medicaid? Who is going to pay taxes to support the government? You’ve heard of the Baby Boom. What about the Baby Bust? It’s here. Working its way through our demo-graphics with grinding, awful affects.

We are literally beginning of the curses of Deutero-nomy 28. Turn there. You won’t like it.

Verse 20 The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin. (Sound like the US Government today?)

Verse 21 The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land. (AIDS, MRSA, flesh-eating bacteria?)

Verse 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. (Remember the droughts all last summer?)

Verse 25 The Lord will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. (We are far from winning the war on terror)

Verse 37 You will become a thing of horror and an object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations. (America isn’t exactly revered anymore).

Verse 43 The alien who lives among you will rise above you higher and higher, but you will sink lower and lower. He will lend to you, but you will not lend to him. He will be the head, but you will be the tail. (There are already over 20 million of them).

Verse 45 All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the Lord your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you. They will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. Because you did not serve the Lord your God joyfully and gladly in the time of prosperity, therefore in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and dire poverty, you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

Verse 63 Just as it pleased the Lord to make you prosper and increase in number, so it will please him to ruin and destroy you.

Now don’t forget, that’s a predictive prophecy. The Lord set before the Hebrews lifeblessings and curses. Moses pleaded – Now choose life! and death,

We didn’t. So our nation is coming apart for many reasons. We have all but abandoned God, banishing from the public square and market place.

But in no place is our rebellion against everything holy so clearly seen as in the abortion clinic.

And on the Supreme Court. There, we worship death. Exalt it as a right.

Of course, no one actually comes right out and says that life is not sacred. No one debates whether lives are important. We all think lives are important, don’t we?

But what about a life? One single soul. Is he or she worth fighting for? Dying for? Even if it isn't a member of your family? Do we — as a society, and even as individuals — lose anything if we forfeit a life that didn't have to die?

Is life really sacred…if every life isn't?

That’s the question. That’s the issue. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking about terrorism or embryonic stem-cell research or poor Terri Schiavo. Remember her? The fact that life is no longer sacred cuts to the heart of our democratic process and our respect for every vote. It cuts even to the founding of our very nation. We were founded on "self-evident" truths about "inalienable" rights. Not just the God-given rights of people, but of each individual.

That makes court-sactioned abortion not only an outrage to our nation -- but a humiliation. It makes the statistics, no matter how awful, hollow in our ears.

The price of abortion is not how many babies are killed. That's only the crime. The cost is different.

We pay it – and will forever pay it -- every day. For what might have been.

I for one am certain that we lost the scientist who could have cured cancer — or any number of other diseases. Your children or grandchildren lost the teacher who might have inspired their whole life. Or perhaps we lost the visionary leader who could have transformed our bitter politics.

All those shattered, shortened lives. Surely one of them might have touched yours ... become your friend ... your co-worker ... your mentor ... your spouse? While Diane was pregnant with our children, my prayer for each of my children was that their spouse would be protected in every way, especially from abortion.

What emptiness in our lives might have been filled if some man had taken responsibility for his unborn child? What vacuums might have been avoided if a terrified woman hadn't placed that child in the hands of an abortionist? How much greater would be our nation if our foremost legal authorities hadn't twisted the Constitution into a freedom to kill babies?

Abortion is ripping us apart. Across time and history and eternity. Far beyond statistics and legal briefs.

We can’t even imagine. I can’t. I truly can’t. I will admit that I was busy in 1973. I paid no attention when abortion was legalized. I was happily establishing our family. Determined to advance my career. Becoming an active Christian layperson. Doing what I thought a good husband and father should do.

But, slowly, the awful holocaust of preborn children began to dawn – even on me.

I have never voted for – or worked for – a pro-choice political candidate. Until it became a felony, I took part in pro-life demonstrations.

This caused a real spiritual crisis for me in 1992. I told this story at Grace Baptist. I’m going to repeat it now because it fits perfectly into our vision for this church.

I had volunteered to sing in a citywide Christmas concert with choir members from 25 churches throughout Milwaukee. Many, of course, were Afican American.

Everything went well until the election that November. Russ Feingold – our Democratic senator and Mr. Abortion in the US Senate, was bring opposed by a wonderful pro-life Republican congressman. Feingold actually said, during Senate debate, that he thinks a woman should have the right to have her baby killed if it isn’t perfect, even after it was born. Of course, he realized that he had gone to far. It’s one thing to believer that, but it’s another thing to actually say something like that. Better to think like a Nazi than speak like one.

That is why, I suppose, that senators have permission to “revise and extend” their remarks. Which he proceeded to do. But after his original statement was videotaped.

To my utter amazement, Feingold won reelection by only 5,000 votes out of millions case. And I read in the newspaper, only a few days later, that over 90% of black people had voted for him.

That cut me to the depths of my soul.

How could I possibly sing about the birth of Jesus, with a whole choir full of people who had just voted for a senator who would have had him killed, even after birth.

But, I didn’t want to cause a problem. I didn’t want to let people know how badly I was hurt. So I told the choir director that I was going to quietly withdraw. And why.

He understood. But he asked me to go home over the weekend and pray about it. So I did. And for one of the few times in my life, I asked God to speak to me. I prayed hard. I was in agony.

On Sunday night – the day before I was supposed to tell them my decision – I lay there in bed. Diane knew I was tortured about it. She prayed for me. I prayed, too. But I wasn’t expecting any guidance at all. Then the lights were turned off. And I lay there, staring at the ceiling.

You know what it’s like just before you actually go to sleep? You’re laying there, half in and half out. Kind of floating.

As I lay there, I prayed again. My prayer was an old one. I truly believe that all of those millions of aborted babies are in heaven, with their bodies intact. Worshipping God and welcoming all who come there. I had long believed that I will meet them – all of them – there.

I wanted to be able to tell them truthfully that I had done all I could to stop the slaughter.

So I asked God, “What will the children say if I sing in this concert?”

And God said…They would want their moms and dads to be with them in Heaven.”

The words rolled over me like a truck. They were so powerful. They were so true. And they were so opposite of everything I was thinking or feeling. I sat up on the side of the bed, groaning. Diane thought I was having a heart attack. I told her, “Don’t ever let me tell you that I want to have God talk to me again.”

It was too much. It was beyond powerful. I could understand why the Hebrews didn’t want to hear God talk…but to have Moses listen for them.

So I sang in that Christmas Gospel concert. And ever since then, I’ve been working to see to it that as many of those babys’ parents will be eternally with them.

They are precious in His sight. So are their moms and dads.

Abortion is killing our soul. It is killing our soul. It is killing our country.

What can we do? What WILL we do? I think our commitment to discipling others will make a huge difference. What a wonderful ministry to women who have had abortions. Imagine how it would challenge them if we said, “Our desire is that all parents will be with their aborted children in heaven. Jesus loves them. Jesus loves you. Their children – and your children -- here on earth and there in heaven – love their parents. Salvation is Christ will put you with them forever.”

Now THAT’S a saving message. That’s a message that can heal terrible emotional wounds. That’s a process that can restore sanity to our nation, one person at a time. Both women and men.

And as others take up the discipling cause, that’s a process that will restore the sanctity of life.

Abortion must forever stop. Discipleship – and evangelism -- must forever continue.

We must see to it that everyone is born. And that everyone is born again. Let’s pray.