The Conception Deception
The conception deception began long before January 22, 1973 when The Supreme Court chose to legalize abortion in this country with the Roe vs. Wade decision. Let there be no misunderstanding, the conception deception is the work of Satan. Jesus referred to him as the “Father of Lies.” Therefore, he cannot be trusted. His premises in convincing you to sin are always a lie. Sadly, the conception deception results in 4000 elective abortions a day in this country. This is more lives lost than the number that died on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Even the term “Pro-Choice” is a lie. In reality, Pro-Choice means Pro-Abortion and is a deceptive term used to counter the “Pro-Life” movement. It desensitizes the hearer and diverts attention from the core issue of the unborn child.
This form of diversion and deception is a distorted form of syllogistic argument. A syllogism consists of two premises [a major and minor premise] and a conclusion. For example, A = B and B = C, therefore, A = C. However, if your major or minor premise is wrong, you will draw an invalid conclusion. An example of this is seen in John chapter 9 when on the Sabbath Jesus restored the sight of a man born blind. Listen to the argument of the religious leaders after Jesus performed this wonderful miracle:
“They brought to the Pharisees the man who was formerly blind. Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes. Then the Pharisees also were asking him again how he received his sight. And he said to them, "He applied clay to my eyes, and I washed, and I see." Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, "This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." But others were saying, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And there was a division among them…John 9:13-17.”
The Pharisees concluded Jesus was not from God but a sinner, because He does not keep the Sabbath. But their premise was wrong because they failed to realize the truth of Matthew 12:11: “For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." Jesus even challenged this premise in Matthew 12:12: “How much more valuable is a man than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." Satan diverted the attention of Pharisees to reject the truth. It is interesting that there was no debate concerning the miracle of sight. It could not be denied. It was living truth. Instead, the argument dealt with the timing of the miracle, the Sabbath.
Satan uses the same approach today with the unborn child. He has convinced people the timing of the life does not begin at conception. People argue today: 1st trimester, 2nd trimester, fetal viability (ability to survive outside the womb). Satan has deceived this country by challenging the truth of God’s Word concerning when life begins. The miracle of life is never contested. Satan diverts attention on the timing of when life begins. Believing that life starts after the 1st trimester, 2nd trimester or when the baby is able to survive outside the womb [a false premise] leads to an invalid conclusion, a life does not exist, therefore, I am not taking a life with abortion. So the Sword of the Spirit and the Spirit of Truth must counter this deception.
The first truth of God’s word that counters the conception deception is that LIFE STARTS AT CONCEPTION. Psalm 139:13-16 makes this clear: “For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth; Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.” Satan has convinced people “the timing” of life does not begin at conception. But God superintends every human life from its earliest moments in the womb. David clearly implies in Psalm 139 that God is intimately involved in the process of embryological development. “You wove me” means You did unroll me. The fetus is rolled up and develops in this fetal position in the mother’s womb. Thus, from the very beginning God forms and begins to unroll the fetus. He views the fetus as human life even in this undeveloped state.
David was not some amorphous blob of tissue at conception, but a spiritual being with a sin nature. Your days are not only numbered, but your ministries already planned. Several individuals in Scripture were called to their respective ministries while still in the womb. The Lord told the prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed thee I knew thee.” (Jeremiah 1:5) The Hebrew verb used in this verse for “to know” is yada, which goes far deeper than mere intellectual knowledge or awareness. Yada means personal commitment and intimate experience with the person known. Yada is used for the sexual union between husband and wife in Genesis 4:1. You see, God not only knew “about” Jeremiah, he “knew” him and was involved in a personal way with him before he was conceived. The prophet Isaiah speaks the same truth: “The Lord called me from the womb; From the body of my mother He named me.” (Isaiah 49:1) Likewise, the Apostle Paul said, “But when He who set me apart, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His son in me.” (Galatians 1:15)
Now, if you read these verses as though this were something extraordinary which applied only to prophets and apostles, you have misread the whole passage. What you fail to see is that what the Lord said about the prophets and apostles is true about you also. There is nothing unusual about it. God never made another one like you, and he never will. God never made anyone else who can fill the place you can fill and do the things you can do. This is the wonder of the way God forms human life – that of the billions and billions that have been born upon this earth there are no duplicates. Each one is unique, prepared of God for the time in which he is to live. That is the word, which came to Jeremiah to strengthen him. “Look,” God said, “I have prepared you for this very hour,” as he has prepared you and me for this time, for this world, for this hour of human history. Each of you is therefore both the goal toward which God has been working, and at the same time, the preparation of someone yet to come. And you have a part in their work. What a gift you have! God has prepared you for this moment, through the generations which lie behind you, that you might live and speak and act in this time in history.
This personal and intimate involvement by God in individual lives extends to His personalized involvement in their conception and development. God says that each human life is “woven” (Hebrew, sakak “to weave”) by Him (Ps. 139:13) and that He knits together (Hebrew, raqam “to embroider”) each human frame (Hebrew, estem “skeleton”) in the womb. (Ps. 139:15). This personal, detailed, intimate, divine involvement with each human life reveals that God has a “personalized” plan for each human being even prior to actual conception (Ps. 119:16; 127:3; Is. 43:7-8; Eph. 2:10).
God is saying, “I started getting you ready, and the world ready for you, long before you were born. I worked through your father and your mother, your grandfathers and grandmothers, your great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. For generations back I have been preparing you.” What a remarkable revelation. History reveals that the mother of Sir Walter Scott loved poetry and art. It is no wonder he followed his mother’s loves in this way. The mother of Napoleon Bonaparte was ambitious for herself and her children. The mother of John and Charles Wesley was a godly and devout woman, with great ability. God prepares for a child long before that child is born. This is true even for God’s Son. Galatians 4:4 says, “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” Jesus entered the world at the point of conception. You celebrate the Incarnation at Christmas, Jesus’ birth, but the actual event took place at conception. This reality is brought home when Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth a short time later. Listen to Luke 1:41: “And it came about that when Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Even nature confirms life starts at conception. Inherent in the seed are all the characteristics of the grown plant. If you fall prey to Satan’s deception and consider the fetus to be non-human, the appreciation and understanding of the value of human life will be diminished. Even when a person comes to Christ, his salvation is referred to as a seed. The Apostle Peter says, “for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1 Peter 1:23) What if the Lord declared this imperishable seed no longer to represent life? What if He said it needed to grow and mature further before it would be considered alive in Christ [saved]? Many carnal Christians who make void the grace of God in their life would wake up finding the gift of eternal life aborted. But, praise God this is not the case! The seed is imperishable.
The second truth of God’s word that counters the conception deception is that CONTROL OF ONE’S BODY BELONGS TO THE LORD. Satan has convinced society of a woman’s absolute right to her own body. However, the Word of God says, “Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.” (1 Corinthians 6:13) The women’s right to choose often becomes the opportunity for her parents, an angry boyfriend, or an economically motivated doctor to choose instead, denying the women her choice - life for her child. The right to use one’s body as one sees fit is not absolute. Even in the landmark Roe versus Wade decision, Supreme Court Justice said:
“It is not clear to us that the claim…that one has an unlimited right to do with one’s body as one pleases bears a close relationship to the right of privacy previously articulated in the Court’s decisions. The court has refused to recognize an unlimited right of this kind in the past.”
A personal right ends when exercise of such a right could or does lead to endangering one’s own life or the lives of others (e.g., drunk driving and drug addiction; murder; endangering another’s life through negligence). In abortion, it is the status of these “others” that results in 4000 deaths a day.
The third truth of God’s word that counters the conception deception is that VIOLENCE IS NEVER JUSTIFIED IN YOUR FIGHT TO SAVE THE UNBORN. The truth of Scripture commands you to obey and submit to government authorities. Paul told young pastor Titus: “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed,” (Titus 3:1) Paul told the Christians in Rome: “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” Civil disobedience is certainly allowed when God’s laws are violated but nowhere is violent protest recorded in Scripture. Moses was banished for 40 years for taking matters into his own hands in Egypt. And Jesus rebuked Peter’s use of the sword at His arrest? Jesus told Peter, “…Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword.” (Matthew 26:52)
Rather than assaulting women in pregnancy centers, you must be assisting women in crisis pregnancy. Holly, a physician from Beaumont, Texas, wrote “while Christians have the right and responsibility to work in the political area to influence their country and there culture for Christ, they cannot do this by force or intimidation.” Instead of picketing abortions clinics or engaging in rhetoric that might incite others to violent behavior, the proper place for activism by Christians is in the church and in the home to restore confidence in the God who created the heaven and the earth. The Bible gives a clear parallel with how God treated Hagar when she left Abraham’s household. He met her in her time of need, provided for her materially (returned her to Abraham and Sarah), He comforted her emotionally by assuring her that her child was important. (Ishmael – God hears). She chose life for her and her son.
Society is quick to focus on freedom of choice but slow to focus on the results of such choices. You soon forget there are two victims in abortion – the child who dies and the mother who bears the emotional and psychological scars. With no acknowledgment of the loss of life, there is no funeral and no healthy grief process. This often leads to later relational problems and post-abortion stress disorder. Many women privately live the life described in Matthew 2:18 after Herod had all the babies murdered. “In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.”
David Reardon in his book, The Jericho Plan says, “Abortion is an act of despair.” He notes over 70 percent of women undergoing abortion believe the procedure is morally wrong. They have fallen prey to Satan’s conception deception and act against their conscience because they feel they have no other choice. David Reardon points out that those who are experiencing doubts, grief or regret about the abortion are unable to share that pain. He said, “They don’t feel they can share with their own family, much less within their church, because they’re afraid of the rejection.” If they try to share their grief with someone who is pro-choice, they are going to be told: “Just forget about it and go on with your life. It really wasn’t a baby yet.” Sadly, those who favor a woman’s right to choose don’t want to authenticate the woman’s grief for fear of casting the decision as immoral. Don’t live in denial. Abortion kills babies and hurts women, men and families as well as the church. Until you deal with the pain you are never going to see the truth because it hurts so much.
The conception deception has an alluring grip upon America. Therefore, Christians must work today to win the country to Christ. Then, a secondary gain will be winning the battle for the sanctity of life. The unborn child, the terminally ill patient, etc., is a person in need of care and protection, and you are to treat unborn children, the elderly, etc. with the same kind of compassion that we would apply to all of God’s creation made in His image. The writer of Proverbs 24:11-12 says, “Deliver those who are being taken away to death, and those who are staggering to slaughter, O hold them back. If you say, “See, we did not know this, does He not consider it who weighs the hearts? And does not He know it who keeps your soul? And will He not render to every man according to his work?” God knows your heart. This is the time in America to take a stand and to share individually with people who are confused, because the issue concerning the “sanctity of life” is very clear-cut. May your prayer be that your response to those that oppose the “sanctity of life” be God-centered, reality-based and love-guided.
