Bring the Little Children to Me: A Plea for Life

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Jesus said that children were his first priority. As a matter of fact, children, he says, are the ones in the best posture to receive my kingdom. And unless we grasp that we're all like children, vulnerable and helpless, spiritually speaking, none of us will ever reach out for the kingdom of God. And when we do grasp that we are all like vulnerable and helpless children in God's eyes, we're always going to have a special place in our hearts for the vulnerable and the helpless around us. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, teacher and theologian, J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. That characteristic is that they care for the vulnerable, the weak, the helpless and the forgotten.

Followers of Jesus do this because before God, we are vulnerable and helpless too. Do you believe that? If so, you'll want to share it with others.

This might be one of those messages that you want to come back to over and over. So as always, you can find it or share it from our website. That's J.D.

Greer dot com. Right now, let's join Pastor J.D. in the book of Luke.

All right. Open your Bible to Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18. We are continuing on in our series called In Step, which is basically a walk through the gospel of Luke.

In step with Jesus, even if we are out of step with the world because those things will always go together. Luke chapter 18. Last year, leading up to the election, I preached a message from Luke chapter 10 on the Good Samaritan in which Jesus explained that it is the duty of all Christians to care about any injustice around them, whether it affects them directly or not. Jesus told a story to illustrate that about a Jewish man who had been beaten up and left bleeding on the side of the road.

Two Jewish religious leaders walked right past him. They were good and respectable men, no doubt, but they didn't know the bleeding man, and they hadn't been the ones who beat him up, so they didn't feel obligated to stop and help him. Through this story, with the story of the Good Samaritan who did stop to help him, even at great cost to himself, Jesus taught his followers that taking care of the vulnerable and the hurting around us is our responsibility. Whether or not we had anything to do with the situation of injustice in front of us, right? Injustice in the eyes of God, you see, listen, injustice in the eyes of God is not just cheating somebody.

This is going to be new for some of you, so pay attention. Injustice in God's eyes in both the Old and the New Testament is not just cheating someone. Injustice is seeing someone in need and being in a position to help them out of that need and failing to do that. And so for Luke, that obligation of the strong to protect the weak is a defining feature of following Jesus, and that means that if your life, Luke would say, is not defined by caring for the vulnerable, you could no more say that you're a follower of Jesus, and you could if you were openly sleeping around or refusing to read your Bible. You see, that's the backdrop for what we come to in Luke chapter 8 verse 15. Listen, as I read, people were bringing infants to him that he might touch them, that he might touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they rebuked those parents. Jesus, however, invited them and said, let the little children come to me, and don't stop them because the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never even enter it. The disciples, like many in Jewish culture, did not value children.

I would say that's true in most cultures. Sure, they're cute, but their needs were just not as important as the needs of adults, and in this moment adults needed Jesus, and so the needs of the kids should be put to the side so that the needs of adults could be prioritized, but Jesus said that children were his first priority. As a matter of fact, children, he says, are the ones in the best posture to receive my kingdom, and unless we grasp that we're all like children, vulnerable and helpless, spiritually speaking, none of us will ever reach out for the kingdom of God, and when we do grasp that we are all like vulnerable and helpless children in God's eyes, from that point on, once we realize that, we're always going to have a special place in our hearts for the vulnerable and the helpless around us. Now, there are lots of places where we could apply this, but I want to focus today on the place that Jesus did, and that is with children, and particularly children in their most vulnerable state right now in our country, and that is in the womb. This past Friday marked 48 years since the Supreme Court declared abortion to be a fundamental right. Now, before you tense up, let me just acknowledge I'm always a little conflicted on this because I do not want to come off like a partisan culture warrior, but here's the thing, this should not be a political issue. Regardless, regardless of your approach to other political questions, Christians should be absolutely united on this one, and it's been a long time since I've really dived into it like this.

This is pretty unusual, if that's what I'm doing this weekend, but I know, I know that if I never talk about some of these hard things, then I am failing at my job. So let me just say, okay, going into this, if you have had an abortion or you are considering it, please do not hear me standing up here pointing a finger of judgment at you regarding one of the most painful chapters of your life. I know that some of you felt like you did not have a choice. I saw a study that 64% of women who got abortions said they felt strong pressure from somebody else to do so.

Maybe that was the guy who impregnated them, or maybe it was their parents, or somebody. I want you to know that Jesus's primary purpose in coming to earth was not to stop abortions. Jesus's primary purpose in coming to earth was to die for abortion-committing sinners like you and me. And that means the heartbeat of the message here at this church is not the legislation of a culture of life.

The heartbeat of the message of this church is the offer of new life in Jesus. So let me be very clear, if you have had an abortion, the Lord Jesus stands before you this weekend, not with a finger pointed in condemnation, but with arms open wide in mercy. Now, one final elephant in the room, and that is, some of you may think that I, as a man, and as a white man to boot, have no right to talk about this.

You say, no womb, no say. But I would just ask you gently to consider, since when is speaking out for justice something only a few of us can do? Is speaking up for the vulnerable something only the vulnerable can do? Is speaking up against the unjust treatment of minorities something only minorities should do?

The good Samaritan had an obligation to speak up for the man on the side of the road, even if he'd never been beaten up himself. What I'm going to try to do today is present to you scripture and reason. And I want you to evaluate those things on the basis of their merit, not my gender. Truth doesn't have a gender. Truth doesn't have a race. Truth is truth regardless of whose mouth it's in. What is happening today and what ought to be happening every weekend is not that you gather to listen to the opinions of a white man or a black man or anybody else. We gather to listen to what God has to say about things and that means if I say anything today that contradicts what is written in this book I implore you disregard it. But if I say anything that is found in this book then I urge you cling to it because these are not idle words they are our life. So to begin if we're going to look at the world with the eyes of the good Samaritan we've got to first be honest about the state of the victim that's lying in front of us.

Listen to this. In 2018 abortion was the leading cause of death worldwide with 42 million victims. That is roughly seven holocausts in a single year. Last year right at 900,000 babies were electively aborted in our country which is more than the total amount of American casualties in both world wars and the Vietnam war combined every year. In Iceland which many consider to be a progressive utopia the abortion rate for children diagnosed with Down syndrome now approaches 100%. In the United States 90% of pre-born humans diagnosed with Down syndrome are terminated. In Asia widespread sex selective abortions which means you choose to have the abortion based on the fact that the gender of the the baby wasn't what you wanted it to be. The sex selective abortions in Asia have led to 160 million missing women in Asia today which is more than the entire female population of the United States right now.

And recent studies suggest that selective abortions of baby girls are common in the United States now also. And the reason why is because of the fact that in New York City each year more black children are aborted than are born. I agree with my African-American friend Pastor Thabiti Anyabwile who says it is staggeringly clear that the largest scale injustice the most morally outrageous thing happening in our society today is the killing of children in the womb. Listen are you committed to social justice? Do you want to defend the vulnerable?

Do you want to fight systemic injustice? There are few places where dire urgency meets such moral clarity and clear opportunity as with the cause of the protection of children in the womb. Now I know a lot of people will say well no no it's a lot more complex than that the baby is a part of a woman's body and we need to respect her right to privacy and her sovereignty over her body and I agree that the right to privacy over our bodies is precious. But here's the thing that baby is not part of her body that baby is intimately attached to her body for a period of time yes but it's not part of her body. Listen Thaddeus Williams from whom I'm going to draw on a lot today he says from the moment of conception that baby has its own DNA its own unique genetic code its own unique heart its own unique circulatory system its own unique brain and more if you're saying it is part of her body does that mean she herself has two brains two hearts four arms and four legs no of course not it's a separate person even when intimately attached to her body. Scripture certainly presents the pre-born child as its own person the psalmist of psalm 139 glories in the fact that in the womb God knew me by name as a person and there I was fearfully and wonderfully designed for the purposes that God had for me I was knit together according to his plan and all my days and all his purpose for me was already written down in a book before my mom even knew she was pregnant.

Scripture tells us that John the Baptist leapt in Elizabeth's womb because his spirit in the womb was filled with the spirit hers wasn't but his was which means there are two different spirits going on there his was filled with the spirit when he came into the presence of Jesus. Somebody says yeah but it's still in my body yeah but we all know that our rights over our bodies are not absolute as far as the law is concerned prostitution is illegal in most states and I don't know of anywhere in the U.S. that you can legally pour drugs into your body just because it's your body your rights to your body stop precisely at that place where they begin to affect somebody else's and that's exactly what's happening to the pre-born. People say well saying life begins at conception is a matter of opinion then you shouldn't force your opinion on others but we're not in the realm of opinion here we're in the realm of biology and scripture. Hear me out let me get into the weeds for about five minutes and just hang with me if you say life begins at birth well the only difference between a baby five seconds prior to the birth and five seconds after birth is location and location seems like a really arbitrary foundation for personhood don't you think scientifically what's the difference in the nature of the baby five seconds prior to birth and five seconds after certainly not that way scripture presents it if you say well life begins with brain function when the baby can experience pain when they are in a sentient or I mean self-conscious state that's when life begins well first you should admit that that contradicts the position that abortion is a fundamental woman's right through all nine months of pregnancy simply because it's in her womb but second does that mean that when we are not in a sentient state that we have then lost our right to life I'm going to tell you if I go into a coma that you know that I'm going to wake up from it not much my strong preference would be that you not kill me you say well no life begins at viability when the baby can live on his own and again that seems like a really strange criteria for when personhood begins just think about it isn't viability contingent on the advancement of technology every year doesn't newer and better technology push the length of viability back if viability determines personhood that means whether or not somebody's a person is dependent on how advanced the technology is of the society they live in that means that people who are in advanced societies have more personhood than people who are in less advanced societies and that doesn't make sense plus I would argue to you that the more helpless a person is the more vulnerable the less viable the more we as a society are obligated to protect them in the words of cardinal Roger Mahoney he says we judge societies on how they treat their weakest members not their strongest ones how they treat the last how they treat the least how they treat the littlest and friend even if you're unclear on this and you're like well I'm just not convinced why does not convince a personhood begins at conception I would just say to you wouldn't you shouldn't you err on the side of life I mean think of it this way if you're out hunting in the woods with a friend of yours and you hear a rustling in the bushes over there and you're not sure whether it's your friend or a deer morality and common sense dictate that you don't pull the trigger and so you know that it's not your friend because you don't want to be guilty of accidentally murdering them so even if you were unclear I would say err on the side of life you say well no no but the problem is if abortion were made illegal today then people are just going to go back to pre-1973 with coat hangers and back alley butchers and a couple things I would say here first just to be clear stories of that are way exaggerated if you look at it a total of 39 women died the year before Roe versus Wade through illegal abortions and that's tragic but compare that to 900,000 babies who die in state sanctioned abortions this year and a second again quoting the Christian philosopher Thaddeus Williams the coat hanger argument misses the point that the pre-born are people and pointing out some negative side effects of a restriction doesn't justify the sanctioning of murder people say well what about in the case of genetic disabilities we shouldn't be bringing babies into the world with genetic disabilities whose lives are going to just be reduced to hardship and unhappiness when people say that to me I'm always like well first you should know that people with disabilities are vehemently opposed to that argument in fact there's not a single organization of disabled people in the world that I know of that is in favor of elective abortions of those who have disabilities second you are making a false correlation hear me out you're making a false correlation between genetic deformities and unhappiness listen to this no study no study I'm quoting this Baltimore study done in Baltimore no study has found that handicapped persons are more likely than non-handicapped persons to want to die or commit suicide in fact of the 200 consecutive suicides in Baltimore last year none had been committed by people with congenital deformities none that means if you're trying to say that we should be able to abort those whom we know in advance are the most likely to be unhappy it's not those with genetic deformities that you should start with they're on the happy end of the scale and the point is who are we to determine when another life is worth living again this whole line of thinking just misses the point the pre-born baby is a person and what we think they might experience and whether it's going to be hardship or whether it's not going to be not like my life doesn't justify killing them does it and I'd love to introduce you to two church members Anna Williamson there's one she's a friend of our family she's now the manager of the UVA basketball team when Anna was born or when she was in her mother's womb they're diagnosed with spina bifida and the doctor said this is going to be really bad and certainly told her that she was in that category that ought to seriously consider this you follow her on Instagram and I dare you I double dog dare you just to make this argument to her Daniel Ritchie is another one you go to the Capitol you go to the Capitol Hills campus you'll see him walking around the reason you'll know it's him is because he was born without arms same conversation between the doctor and the the mother now Daniel just graduated from seminary over at Southeastern and now he goes around and speaks of high schools and colleges talking about how to discover God's purpose for you even in hardship and I will tell you both those people you will find in them two of the happiest people that are the most full of life that I know I've heard people say well abortion sometimes helps poor women escape crushing financial burdens banning abortion would banning abortion would just cause overpopulation and lead to massive massive poverty but friend that kind of statement confuses finding a solution with eliminating a problem those are not the same thing I mean think of it this way if the neighbor's dog keeps pooping in your yard and you go out and shoot the dog you have eliminated the problem but you haven't come up with a solution and your elimination of the problem was not a moral one that was cat you break away with that but if it's a dog it's like not good right don't confuse eliminating a problem with coming up with a solution again the point is that the pre-born are people you can't justify killing a person because it eliminates a problem I mean if if you use that reasoning there where does it stop couldn't you use that same line of reasoning to justify eliminating other financially burdensome groups so yes poverty is a problem hardship's a problem let's come up with solutions let's don't just eliminate the problem people then say well what about in cases of rape or incest first let me tell you that I cannot imagine the pain it would be involved in something like like that it's unspeakable but just to keep it in perspective those tragic and heartbreaking cases make up less than one percent of all abortions so when somebody says that to me I always ask them like okay so let's just be clear you're agreeing then that the other 99 percent of abortions are indeed immoral but the bigger point the consistent point is this does the fact that that baby got there by rape or incest change the fact that they're still a person does the circumstances of somebody's birth take away from their personhood if a grown adult somehow discovered that they had been conceived by rape and that would be tragic for you to discover that about your past but would that somehow reduce your value as a person or lessen your right to life now you see keep your eye on the central question is the pre-born baby a person is it made in the image of god because if they are and they are in the image of god and god knows them by name psalm 139 and they are an organism with their own life then how they became a person is irrelevant listen that little human life that little person regardless of how they got there you know when it's no bigger than a a speck the size of a period at the end of a sentence that little speck is made in the image of god and that speck therefore has more value than all the planets and all the stars and all the cosmos and all the wealth piled up in all the world because it's got a soul that is made in the image of god that jesus died for and a soul that has an eternal future i'm getting into the weeds here a little bit i know but it's because i want you to see that scientifically and scripturally there's no question about how jesus feels about about these little children let them come to me he says bring them to me their lives are precious and valuable and if you care about me you're going to care about them and you're not going to dismiss them like the disciples do to the children in this story you're not going to dismiss them as an inconvenience i know some of you might be sitting there saying well okay well this sounds like a pretty eloquent defensive life and my mind's already my mind's made up on that but what's my responsibility y'all and that's a great question because the point of the good samaritan story is not that we merely think the right things the point of the good samaritan story is that we do the right thing as well human life has more value than all the planets and stars each soul is made in the image of god and has an eternal future an eternal perspective today here on summit life with jd greer if you missed any of today's message you can listen again to this message titled bring the little children to me a plea for life by visiting jdgrier.com we have a new resource that we're excited to offer you this month and it's unlike anything that we've offered in quite some time it's a handy set of 50 scripture memory verse cards you might remember we offered something similar this time last year if you want to carry god's promises in your heart these new summit life memory verse cards make it easy and convenient to memorize scripture the cards are a small two and a half by three and a half inch size for quick reference putting it on the fridge or even sticking in your wallet pin them to a bulletin board or mirror for extra encouragement to hide them in your heart it's a whole new set of verses for 2022 that we are committing to our hearts and minds the discipline of memorizing scripture can also allow us to share it with unbelievers better we are urged in first peter 315 to always be ready to give a defense for our hope in christ we should memorize scripture so that we can walk unbelievers through the salvation message and help them understand their sin and need for a savior speaking god's words instead of our own can give us confidence in sharing you can keep these cards or share them with others and they're an inspiring reminder to your loved ones that god is always with them you're welcome to request this new set of cards as a token of our thanks when you donate today to support this ministry it takes friends like you partnering with us to make summit life possible so that more people can hear gospel centered bible teaching on the radio and web we're adding more radio stations all the time and every new station means more people can hear this program but every new station also means new expenses unlike traditional radio we don't make money from advertisements we rely solely on god's people to help fund this mission will you join that mission today the suggested donation is 35 or more and when you get in touch remember to ask for your set of the rejoice always scripture memory cards call 866-335-5220 that's 866-335-5220 or you can give online at jdgrier.com by the way if you haven't checked out pastor jd's newest podcast called ask me anything you'll want to do that today pastor jd gives quick honest answers to tricky questions and you can find it online at jdgrier.com or through your favorite podcasting app i'm molly vidovich inviting you to join us again monday when pastor jd concludes his plea for human life and answers the question what does it mean to be a protector and defender of the weak and vulnerable among us have a great weekend and join us monday for summit life with jd greer today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries