"SOLDIERS OF CHRIST ARISE"
TEXT: DEUTERONOMY 18:9-13; PSALMS 106:34-41
INTRODUCTION
DIARY OF AN UNBORN CHILD
A. OCTOBER 5 -- Today my life began. My parents do not know it yet, I am as small as a seed of an apple, but it is I already. And I am to be a girl. I shall have blond hair and blue eyes. Just about everything is settled though, even the fact that I shall love flowers.
OCTOBER 19 -- Some say that I am not a real person yet, that only my mother exists. But I am a real person, just as a small crumb of bread is yet truly bread. My mother is. And I am.
OCTOBER 23 -- My mouth is just beginning to open now. Just think, in a year or so I shall be laughing and later talking. I know what my first word will be: MAMA
OCTOBER 25 -- my HEART BEGAN TO BEAT TODAY ALL BY ITSELF. from NOW ON IT SHALL GENTLY BEAT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE WITHOUT EVER STOPPING TO REST! and AFTER MANY YEARS IT WILL TIRE. it WILL STOP, AND THEN i SHALL DIE.
NOVEMBER 2 -- I am growing a bit every day. My arms and legs are beginning to take shape. But I have to wait a long time yet before those legs will raise me to my mother’s arms, before these little arms will be able to gather flowers and embrace my father.
NOVEMBER 12 -- Tiny fingers are beginning to form on my hands. Funny how small they are! I’ll be able to stroke my mother’s hair with them.
NOVEMBER 20 -- It wasn’t until today that the doctor told my mom that I am living here under her heart. Oh, how happy she must be! Are you happy mom?
NOVEMBER 25 -- My mom and dad are probably thinking about a name for me. But they don’t even know that I am a little girl. I want to be called Kathy. I am getting so big already.
DECEMBER 10 -- My hair is growing. It is smooth and bright and shiny. I wonder what kind of hair my mom has.
DECEMBER 13 -- I am just about able to see. It is dark around me. When my mom brings me into the world it will be full of sunshine and flowers. But what I want more than anything is to se my mom. How do you look, mom?
DECEMBER 24 -- I wonder if my mom hears the whispering of my heart? Some children come into the world a little sick. But my heart is strong and healthy. It beats so evenly: tup-tup tup tup. You’ll have a healthy little daughter, mom!
DECEMBER 28 -- TODAY MY MOTHER KILLED ME. prayer
B. I Corinthians 14:8 asks, "if the trumpet does not sound a clear call who will get ready for battle?" If the church doesn’t take a stand for morality, if the church doesn’t take a stand for the unborn, who is? That is why today we are participating in the nationwide worship service on the Sanctity of Life.
Now it is possible for the church to get so involved in every little social skirmish that comes along that it may then forget it’s primary mission to spread the gospel. BUT Abortion is no small skirmish, it is an all out war on the unborn, it is the brutal murder of precious tiny babies created in the image of God.
How should God’s people feel about Abortion? Well, how does God feel? Proverbs 6:17 reads, "God hates the hands that shed innocent blood." As God looks down and sees these innocent little children murdered, He hates it!!! And we as God’s people should hate it to.
Today we will studying a passage of scripture from the 18th chapter of Deuteronomy. In these chapter Moses is telling the people that they are not to be like the people who live in the promise now, they are not to do what they do, they are not to imitate their detestable ways. And one of these ways was, the killing of their own children.
This morning we will look at this passage and we will see how one of these detestable practice is parallel to the detestable practice of Abortion in our country.
I. THE SITUATION IN ANCIENT ISRAEL
The Nation of Israel of Israel was just about to enter the promise land. And Moses warned them not top get involved in any of the pagan practices that they would encounter there.
Israel new neighbors were devoted worshippers of an animal named Molech. Molech was a large grotesque beast with the head of a man and a body of a bull.
Did you ever wonder why these pagan people would get excited about worshipping an idol of a beast? Did you ever wonder why God would have to have Moses warn the Israelites not to turn from god and worship an idol like this? I mean what did this half man half beast stone idol have to offer when compared with the one true God, who had displayed power and His love for them by delivering them from Egypt?
The thing that made Molech worship so exciting is that it almost always involved sexual activities. And sexual activities can be attractive. And Israel had shown it was very vulnerable to this type of sin back in Numbers chapter 25, where the Moabite women seduced the Israelite men into sexual immorality and the worshiped the Baal of Peor.
The worship of Molech involved sexual sin. Under the Bull, a fire burned until the hollow abdomen burned with intense heat. The Molech worshippers would dance and perform various types of sexual activity with several partners in front of this false god. The activity, the emotion, the insanity would intensify and reach it’s loathsome climax. One of the participants to intensify their own sensual pleasure would take it’s own innocent child and throw him into the fiery hollow abdomen. The child would be burned to death as it screams were muffled by the noise and screams of the worshippers. The next day when the abdomen had cooled down, the remains were taken out of the idol.
The Israelites were warned not become participants in this type of activity because it as detestable to God.
II. WHAT’S HAPPENING IN AMERICA
A. America is a civilized society. And as such Americans would look down upon such a horrible practice as this Molech worship, with contempt and disgust. Why if anyone or group was found doing this they would (as they should be), they would be condemned by everyone, even the Media.
But isn’t this exactly what millions of Americans are doing today. O, they are to civilized to call it Molech worship, but no matter what you call it, millions of people in this country and around the world are engaging in unrestrained sexual activity as the worship the Goddess of sex. And the unwanted children who are conceived in this activity are sacrificed in the womb of the idolaters who the toss the ashes into the abortuary as they worship the god of sex.
On January 22nd 1973 the Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision in Roe vs. Wade legalized Abortion in America, overturning almost all existing Abortion laws.
The requirements to the Abortion are:
1. the baby still lives inside the mother
2. the mother wants the baby killed
3. her doctor is willing to do it
In 1976 the court ruled (on behalf of planned parenthood), that a state may not require written permission of a spouse; or in the case of a minor, the consent of the parents.
It has been 20 years now since this declaration of war against the unborn. And since that time nearly 30 million children have been murdered. And of that 30 million according to the percentages from a planned parent survey on the reasons for having an abortion.
4,800,000 babies were murdered because the women were concerned about how a baby would change there life.
6,300,000 babies were murdered because the women said they were not ready for that responsibility
6,300,000 were murdered because the women said they could not afford the baby.
3,600,000 babies were murdered because they said they had a relationship,problem.
3,300,000 said the reason they murdered their baby is because they were not mature enough.
2,400,000 murdered their baby because they said they had all the children they wanted.
1,200,000 were murdered for some other reason.
27,900,000 were murdered for really no other reason then for birth control or that the women wanted to for social reasons.
In one study of the women who had abortions only 6% were using birth control when they conceived and 30% have had multiple abortions. Abortion on demand has become America’s contraceptive.
Let’s not be fooled by the lies and word games of the pro-death crowd.
First they are not pro-choice, because choice implies that you have 2 options. Life being one option, then why do they oppose those who choose live.
2nd it’s not about a woman’s right to do what she wants to with her body. That statement is just not true, a women can not be a prostitute or a drug user if she wants to.
3rd they don’t care about the women’s health, abortion clinics are less regulated then a vets office. And the pro-death crowd does not want regulations, why would that be if they care so much about women?
Abortion is not choice it is murder.
It is a human life that is murdered and not fetal tissue or the products of conception.
WHAT IS ABORTION?
ABORTION IS:
A 6 week old baby whose heart is beating, suddenly a suction tube enters his world and pulls his little body into pieces that are sucked into a bottle.
A 12 week old baby; all organs functional, This unborn person breathes swallows and urinates. And has even been found sucking his thumb. He is very sensitive to pain recoiling at a pin prick. One day a hook like tool comes at him through his mothers dilated cervix and chops his struggling body into bloody chunks. The operating nurse stands by to assemble the parts to ensure nothing has been left inside the mother.
What is Abortion? It is a 19 week baby with facial expressions; with fine hair that is beginning to grow, eyebrows, eyelashes. The heart is plainly heard and the mother is beginning to show. Suddenly along needle injects a salt solution into the amniotic fluid in which the baby is floating. The baby breathes and swallows this and is poisoned from the inside as the outer layers of his skin are burned from the outside. And after an hour of this terrible pain the baby dies.
What is abortion? Abortion is a 24 week old baby who could live outside the mothers womb. The mother has a hesterectonomy, the procedure is just like a C section with one horrifying exception. Instead of cutting the cord and talking the baby to intensive care to be cared for it is drop into a bucket. If the baby is to vigorous the doctor may have to strangle it or smother it.
Kathern Mallory a nurse in Jacksonville Florida wrote,
"I work the 11 pm-7am shift, and when we weren’t busy, I’d go out to help with the newborns. There was a baby crying in a bassinet, perfectly formed baby, but there was something different. She had been scalded. She was a child of a saline abortion. This little girl looked as though she had been put into a pot of boiling water. No doctor, No nurse, No parent to comfort this hurt burned child. She was left to die alone in pain. They wouldn’t let her in the nursery they wouldn’t even bother to cover her. I was ashamed of my profession that night! It’s hard to believe this can happen in our modern hospitals but it happens all the time. I asked a nurse at another hospital what they do with their babies aborted by saline. Unlike my hospital where the baby was left alone struggling for breathe, their hospital puts the infants in a bucket and closes the lid, death by suffocation! Another nurse said she had to stop helping with Abortions. The little severed arms and legs from suction abortions were just too much to look at.
III. HOW DOES GOD FEEL ABOUT ABORTION
A. In Exodus 20:13 and Deuteronomy 5:17 we read,
"you shall not murder"
B. In Genesis 9:6 we read,
"An from each man too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellowman. Whoever sheds the blood of an innocent man, by his man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God, has God made man".
C. Proverbs 6:17, "God hates the hands that shed innocent blood".
D. Abortion angers God because it is murder.
The unborn is not fetal tissue it’s a child.
Listen to what scripture says:
1. Psalm 139:13-16
2. God told Jeremiah in 1:5
"before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you a part.
3. Isaiah 44:24,
"This is what the Lord says - your redeemer who formed you in the womb."
E. The pro-death crowd may call it: fetal tissue and potential life.
But calls it a child, a human life. Carefully carved and created by the hand of God.
F. And children hold a special place in the heart of God. Jesus said one time as we read in Matthew 18:10,
"See that you do not look down on these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in Heaven".
WHAT ARE THEY TELLING GOD?
G. The anger of God was kindled against the Canities who sacrificed their children. God said they were to be driven out form the land and destroyed completely as a judgment for their crime. And the Israelites were warned that if they ever did such things that they too would be severely punished.
America better wake up and repent and change her ways, because a nation that kills children will find them selves under the wrath of God.
A nation who puts such a low price on human life is headed for self-destruction.
It happened to the pagan nations in the Bible.
It happened to Israel [Ps 106:36-42]
What makes us think it won’t happen to us/ to our country?
Remember in Genesis 4 when Cain killed Abel, God came to Cain and said, "Where’s you, brother?" Cain sneered and said, "I’m not my brothers keeper". God said to Cain, "The blood of your brother cries out to me from the ground for justice."
Let me ask you, If a child in the womb is a person to God, if Abortion is therefore murder, is not the blood of nearly 30 million innocent babies crying out from the ground, from the dumpsters, and from the garbage cans for justice.
They will get justice God will see to that.
IV. WHAT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF GOD’S PEOPLE
A. The America people have just elected to office and have seen sworn in a man who will in less than 90 days, undo all the work that has been done for the pro-life movement.
B. President Clinton with a stroke of the pen will lift the ban on fetal tissue research, remove the gag rule from federally funded abortion clinics, approve the use of the RU 486 abortion pill. He will also allow the Senate and congress to pass the Freedom of Choice Act which will allow abortion on demand and prevent any state form limiting abortions, ever.
C. Satan and the pro-death crowd have won a tremendous victory with the election of Bill Clinton.
D. Where has the church been?
C. Everett Koop, while Surgeon General of the United states said:
"Abortion; the whole issue has been foisted upon us thru deception. It’s advocates have convinced much of the American public and the courts that abortion concerns a fetus and not a person in the true sense, that it concerns a woman’s right of privacy, and the issue is political and social rather than personal and moral.
The Supreme court has championed these views. The secular public is split right down the middle. Pro-life groups flex their muscles in major cities. But the evangelical church, which should be seething with outrage and storming the nation in protests still waits in the wings, trying to make up it’s mind".
The Israelites were told not to sacrifice their children and they were told to drive those who practiced such things out of the land.
When are the churches in this country going to wake up, when are the Christians in this country going to wake up and realize that abortion is a serious matter that is not only murdering babies but is tearing a part the moral fabric of this country. When are God’s people going to drive this evil from our land.
One May the 3rd last year, I preached on Abortion as we went through he book of Exodus. And many were outraged and shocked at this great holocaust on the unborn. And I suggested some things we could do to make a difference. As I once again suggest some ways we can join this fight, we each need to ask ourselves, "I have had over the 7 months since the last time I heard this, have I done any thing other than get all excited on May the 3rd 1992. I have, done some things but not near enough. And for that I repent and ask the Lord’s forgiveness."
All that is needed for evil to win out in our country is for good man to do nothing. And that’s what most of God’s people today have been doing, NOTHING!!
what we can do.
1. REPENT: if you have had an Abortion or counseled some one to have an Abortion. We need to Repent if we have done nothing to help the unborn. We must not gloss it over or rationalize it, the Bible says, "if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins.
2. PRAY: for troubled women, our country/our churches/ ourselves to wake up.
3. GET INVOLVED:
a. VOTE PRO-LIFE; if you haven’t in the past start now. Sure their are other important issues but in order of priority economics or any other issue for that matter, does not rank any where near the sanctity of human life.
b. write /call politicians, they listen to calls. President Clinton’s nomination for attorney General was forced to withdraw because of the public out cry at her breaking the law. Write this week about FOC ACT, they do listen, it’s just that most of us aren’t saying anything to them.
c. support groups like NRL.
d. Carry a sign at a clinic, be a part of a life chain.
e. Volunteer at a Crisis Pregnancy center, there are many ways to serve there.
f. If your Doctor performs abortions get another Doctor.
Our involvement will make a difference. Can you just imagine some day going to heaven and meeting some one who has come up to thank you. "I had such a great life on earth, and I just want to say thank you because if it wasn’t for what you did I would have been aborted."
g. Friends we need to do something now!! Every minute we sit back 3 unborn children are murdered.
I believe that when we all go to heaven that God will ask each of us what did you do when my precious little children were be murdered by the millions. Didn’t you care? Why did you sit back and do nothing?
PASTOR MARTIN NEIMOLLER
In Germany they first came for the communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a communist. Then they came for the Jews and i didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up because i wasn’t a Trade Unionist. the they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a protestant. then they came for me... and by that time there was no one left to speak up."
Let’s close on a positive note.
Listen to what Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 20:1-4.
WHEN YOU GO TO WAR AGAINST YOUR ENEMIES (SATAN AND HIS SERVANTS) AND YOU SEE; THE ACLU, PLANNED PARENT HOOD, THE PRO-DEATH CROWD, THE BIASED MEDIA AND THE LIBERAL POLITICIANS, DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THEM, BECAUSE THE LORD YOUR GOD WHO DEFEATED SATAN AND DELIVERED YOU FROM SIN WILL BE WITH YOU.
WHEN YOU ARE ABOUT TO GO INTO BATTLE REMIND YOURSELVES OF WHAT THE WORD OF GOD SAYS.
AND ADDRESS THE SOLDIERS OF CHRIST THIS WAY, " HEAR THIS ALL CHRISTIANS, TODAY YOU ARE GOING INTO BATTLE AGAINST YOUR ENEMIES. DO NOT BE FAINTHEARTED OR AFRAID; DO NOT BE TERRIFIED OR GIVE WAY TO PANIC BEFORE THEM. FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD IS THE ONE WHO GOES WITH YOU TO FIGHT FOR YOU AGAINST YOUR ENEMIES AND GIVE YOU VICTORY.
GOD WILL GIVE HIS PEOPLE VICTORY.
THROUGH OUR FAITH IN GOD WE WILL OVERCOME THE WORLD.
GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL AND HIS TEAM IS THE WINNING TEAM.
