Yesterday, I preached from Romans 13:8-14 on Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. The overall goal of the sermon was to point to the abnormality of the culture of death that’s sadly become a normal reality for our children.
The village of Tomtor is a Russian village in one of the coldest places in the world – the Omyakon valley. The Tomtor village is the coldest permanently inhabited settlement in the world. Temperatures plummet to -71C, so cold that airplanes cannot land there in winter. Interestingly enough, the children who are born into this village life learn to eat reindeer and survive the frigid temperatures. They grow up believing their life is normal, when in all reality, it’s abnormal to be that cold. Until they are taught otherwise, in their little circle of life, they think their lifestyle of surviving the cold is a normal thing.
As our children grow up in our educated, progressive, advanced, and sophisticated culture of America – they are taught that it’s a normal thing for a mother to murder her unborn child in an abortion clinic for under $500. They grow up hearing celebrities and actress like Jemima Kirke publicly sharing her abortion story. Kirke claimed that aborting her unborn baby helped her through unfortunate economic circumstances. The mainstream culture of America praises such decisions, and celebrates it under the banner of “reproductive freedom” and “equality of women.”
If not taught otherwise, our children will grow up believing that abortion is normal, when in all reality there is nothing normal about a mother killing her baby. If we don’t teach our children the truth, they will leave our homes and go off to the university where they will sit in classrooms taught by liberal professors who will continue to brain wash them with lies. Peter Singer, a professor at Princeton said “the life of an adult pig deserves protection more than that of a new born human baby, and . . . the parents should be free to kill their young children already born if they deem them unacceptably disabled.”
The culture of death is abnormal, and Jesus taught us to love our neighbor as ourself. Paul picked up that same truth and encouraged the church at Rome to do the same thing. His main emphasis was love – which fulfills the entire law. The flow of the argument is as follows:
- If you love God supremely (with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength), you will by natural progression love your neighbor as yourself. Until you obey the first table of the law, you cannot move on to the second table. The first table of the Ten Commandments is focused on loving God. The second table is focused on loving your fellow human. Love is the key.
- If you love your neighbor, you will not steal his wife, murder him, steal his possessions, or covet his possessions. Love is the opposite of taking advantage and abusing your neighbor.
- The church must wake up as time is progressing. Christ is coming soon and the church must not be sleeping.
- The church must put off the works of darkness and put on Christ.
As we consider these words, we can easily see how loving our unborn neighbor is important. We must not allow our unborn neighbor to be taken advantage of and murdered without speaking up. We must tell the truth to law makers, politicians, and the general public. We must likewise start by educating our children that the culture of death that surrounds us is abnormal.
Teaching our children to avoid sexual immorality and drunkenness is more than a check box. It’s one clear way to love your neighbor. Practicing such sinful lifestyle choices places unborn children at a significantly higher risk of being aborted from the day they are conceived. We must labor to teach our children holiness and this prevents unwanted pregnancies and will ultimately reduce the number of abortions.
Furthermore, as we stand in the gap for the unborn, we must be honest with ourselves and with those we love. There is a better way. There is a better alternative than abortion. Yes, abortion is murder, but the church should likewise talk openly about the beauty of adoption. The culture of death is abnormal, but for the culture of adoption to be absent from the local church is likewise abnormal. Do we truly care for the orphans? Do we truly care for the unborn? One way to fight this battle is by promoting and building a culture of adoption within your local church.
Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, performed 327,653 abortions in one year (2013-2014). The United States government gave Planned Parenthood $528.4 million dollars in that same time period. Although the largest abortion provider in America has been caught in scandals and proven to be careless with human life – they are still funded by tax dollars and they still operate legally in America.
No matter what President Obama or other politicians say – if you don’t love your unborn neighbor, you are no different than the priest and Levite who passed by the injured man on the side of the road without showing him mercy (Luke 10:25-37). If you claim to love God but you refuse to show mercy to your unborn neighbor, your religion is hypocrisy.
