Greg Laurie and Harvest Ministries recommend a great new children's book by Sally Lloyd-Jones called Jesus Our True Friend. You have kids and they need to hear the story of Jesus. And I bet you struggle at times trying to read Bible stories to your children. This is a great tool, so order your copy of Jesus Our True Friend Stories to Fill Your Heart with Joy, written by Sally Lloyd-Jones. Yours for a gift of any amount at harvest.org.
Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. What is it? It's a day that acknowledges That Every child Is created in the image of God, and life begins at conception.
Some say life begins at birth. No, life begins at conception. The moment you are conceived, you're a living soul made in the image of Almighty God. David said in Psalm 139, you made all of my delicate inner parts of my body. You knit me together in my mother's womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
Isn't that a beautiful passage? It's saying that not only is God aware, of that little one. That has been conceived, but he has a plan for them. Yording has a plan in store. Uh and over in Jeremiah 1.5.
Jeremiah says, I knew you before, excuse me, the Lord says to Jeremiah, I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb. Before you were born, I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesman to the world. Notice the Lord says, I formed you in your mother's womb. And some would say, well, you know, it's not really a human being until it's born. And we'll have this other verbiage that we'll use that maybe makes people more comfortable with terminating the life of an unborn child or call it a fetus.
An embryo, a glob of cells, even uterine contents, products of conception. Or here's one of my favorite potential human beings. Or what else would it be? Could it be a horse maybe? No.
It is a human being made in the image of God. More than a potential human being. It's a human being with incredible potential. And God loves each and every one. But yet...
Abortion has become so commonplace. The governor of Virginia was asked what would happen to an infant who survived abortion. And he said this, and I quote, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and family desired.
Okay, let me get this right.
So you're saying that if you were performing an abortion and somehow the infant survived it. That you would then turn to the mother or the family members and say, Well, do you want the child to live? And if they were to say no, and they would. Kill a baby outside of the mother's womb. That sounds like murder to me.
What about you? The same is true if it's in the mother's womb. I read a new trend among young girls now is having an abortion party. I wish I was making this up. I read about a girl named Maggie who was having an abortion party.
There'd be big goods, bear, and dancing to raise money to pay for her. Abortion. It is just a national travesty to think about the millions of children that have been killed. And yes, that's what it is. Exactly.
You can say terminating a pregnancy, those children were killed. And who knows who some of them could have grown up to be? We could have had a President of the United States. We could have had a preacher of the gospel. We could have had a doctor that would find the cure for cancer.
Who knows what? But we'll never know. This is so horrible. And here's what no one ever talks about. They don't talk about the impact of an abortion upon the mother who has it.
They have much higher depression. The divorce, excuse me, the uh suicide rate. It's far higher among girls who have had abortions than those who have not. A University of Minnesota study on teen suicide found the rate of attempted suicide increased 10 times for teens who had aborted their child than others who had not done that.
So it's never the answer.
Now, here's what should happen. If a young woman finds herself pregnant outside of wedlock, and my mother, as I've told you before, found herself in that very position. A pregnant with me. And uh she carried me to term thankfully. And so If a woman finds herself pregnant, you should number one, have the baby.
That's not a question. Is have the baby.
Now we raise the baby as a single mother. Maybe you could marry the father if that would work out. Uh, if you don't want to raise the baby, put the baby up for adoption, give them a chance for life, they deserve it. Yeah, but Greg, wait a second, though. What if the mother's life is in danger?
Okay, that's very rare, but let's just play that out logically. If the mother's life in danger, is it okay to abort the baby? Let me illustrate it this way. Let's say that a mother was walking down the street and her little toddler ran into the street, into the path of an oncoming car. What should the mother do?
The mother should do nothing that would endanger her life. No way. Any normal mother with built-in maternal instincts would move so quickly to get that baby out of the path of the oncoming car, you wouldn't believe it. And if she was hit in the process to spare the life of her child, you know a normal mother would do this.
Some years ago, uh when our grandson Christopher was really a little guy. He was, uh, we were at the beach, and uh, Jonathan was out surfing. I was sitting on the beach reading, and his mother, uh, Christopher's mother, was watching him, and he was right on the shore, and a little wave came in and knocked him over. I was getting ready to get up from my chair to go to him. And before I could even stand, she was halfway there.
She was like a panther. Scooped them up as a yes. That lady moved fast.
Well, of course she did. It's her son. You say, but yeah, what if the mother's life is in danger?
Okay, well, I did read the story of a Christian couple. Name Pam and Bob. They were missionaries in the Philippines in nineteen eighty seven. When Pam uh contracted amoebic dysentery, the leading cause of death in the country. At this moment she was pregnant with their sixth child.
And she was very dehydrated and very sick. And she went to her doctor and he advised her to abort the baby. Because of the powerful medicine she would have to take to fight the dysentery, he says he. She needed this to survive. And so here's actually one of those real-life mother's life is in danger scenarios.
So Pam and Bob prayed, they're both Christians. They said, no, we're not going to abort our child. And so they decided to press on. And uh and they had their prayers heard by the Lord, and the baby was born. And he survived.
And by the way, the baby's name was Tim. We know him today as Tim Tebow. Great football player, outspoken follower of Jesus Christ.
So I'm sure Tim's really glad they made that decision. Every child has a right to live because God has a plan for every single child. And we don't want to terminate or stop that plan because everyone is loved by God. My friend Max Aikato puts it this way: you were deliberately planned, specifically gifted, and lovingly positioned on this earth by the master craftsman, end quote.
Now let me say a word, because I know somewhere Some Mother is listening to me. who aborted her child. And she is feeling a load of guilt. and deep depression. And I want to say this to you.
Uh you will see your child again. Because every little one that dies goes straight into the presence of God. Jesus said, Let the children come unto me and don't forbid them, for if such is the kingdom of heaven.
So I believe these little ones, all these children that were aborted, are in heaven right now. And even though what you did was wrong, and you should ask God to forgive you of this sin, he will forgive you, and you need to accept the forgiveness of God. I think of one young lady that uh contacted me. And uh she worked for Planned Parenthood, I think it was uh North Carolina. And so she would go to work every day and listen to our radio program while working at Planned Parenthood, of all things.
And somehow she hadn't connected the two things. And then one day she heard me talking about the imminent return of Christ. And I asked the question: if Jesus were to return, would you be doing anything today you would be ashamed to be doing when he returned?
So she goes into the clinic. And the doctor has just performed an abortion. And the body parts of the baby are laid there on the table, and she's sort of putting them together. And then she thought of that and realized this was the worst thing she could possibly be doing. She quit her job and then.
She went on to be an advocate for the unborn.
So now she's serving the Lord, having seen what a horrible thing that used to be.
So, isn't that great? That's God at work in a person's life. And you say, well, Greg, this is a controversial subject.
So?
Well, Greg, I don't agree with you. Guess what? You're wrong. Because the Bible is clear in this subject.
Now, you can disagree with the Bible if you want, but the Bible is right, and if you don't agree, you're wrong. This is not controversial in Scripture. Scripture does not give a confused message on this topic.
So, if there's confusion, it's on the part of the listener or reader, not on the part of God's word.
So let's encourage those girls out there, if they conceive, to carry those children to term. Who knows? In the interim, maybe they'll marry the father or meet a man that will be the father, but to let the child live. This is personal to me. Why?
I was conceived out of wedlock. I was not planned. But God had a plan for my life. And I'm thankful my mom carried me to term. And so let's encourage other girls to do the same.
Hey everybody, thanks for listening to my podcast. Before you go, I wanted to let you know about the important work we're doing here at Harvest. You know, we've had the same goal these last 50 years, which is simply this. We want to know God and we want to make Him known. And we do that in a lot of ways.
Documentary films, animation, radio, television, large-scale evangelistic events, and more. If you want to be a part of what we're doing to fulfill the great commission, you can support us with whatever you can give. At harvest.org/slash donate. Again, that's harvest.org/slash donate, and thanks so much.
