THE LIVING WORD TRANSCRIPT

Program Air Date – 10-11-09

LESSON TITLE: “THE WORKS OF THE FLESH ARE…: ABORTION”

WELCOME

“In the beginning - God - created the heavens and the earth!” This morning, it is before this awesome, great and mighty God which we assemble - to praise, laud and magnify His wondrous name! Will you approach His Almighty throne with me in prayer at this time!

(PRAYER)

Thank you so much for joining us this morning to give this time to God. I hope you are ready to worship God this morning in spirit and truth. Because right now it is time to begin praising our God together in song. So won’t you do your part and join in with the congregation as we sing, “O To Be Like Thee!”

(SONG # 1)

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHTS

I am ever reminded of an instrument of our body that carries greater weight and power than any other. Although it is so powerful, it seems small and insignificant to the eye and most would not consider it as we have just described! However, if you notice with me what James said in his book, chapter 3, verse 6, there we read, “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.” Yikes, did you catch all of that! Our tongue truly is powerful and able to do a lot. In fact, our tongue can be the greatest and most positive part of our being or it can be the most vile and worst part of our being. Now what does James say makes this determination, of just how our tongue affects us? It’s use!

In verse 9 of the same passage, James goes on to help us understand how the use of our tongue affects us, there we read, “With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men,” You see, we can use our tongue to glorify God, to edify and to do good. Or we can use it to blaspheme against God, to tear down and to harm. Again, according to how we use it - we then are known by our fruits.

Finally, notice what James warns against in verse 10, that “ought not to be so!” He says there, “Out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.” God will not accept our words and the things we say whether they are right or not, unless we are consistent and have shown ourselves to be trustworthy. We can not use that which is for good for bad, nor that which is bad for good and think that God is really ok with this. So how are you perceived of by God, as far as in what you say? Do you always bring glory to Him, or do you harm His precious body? Let’s all learn to use our tongue more properly and to control it more, so that we will be found pleasing in the sight of our Creator!

This morning, we will continue our discussion on the “The Works Of The Flesh Are….” Our specific message of the day will deal with, “Abortion.” So please stay with us this morning and after our next song together, I will return and lead us in our main thoughts of the day. But for now let’s join together in our second song of the morning. The name of this hymn is, “My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less.”

(SONG # 2)

LESSON

By Ray Sullins

We’re glad you’ve continued with us today as we now go to God’s Word and yet again consider another work of the flesh that we should stay away from if we want to be pleasing in the sight of God.

Have you ever held a newborn baby in your arms and smelled that new baby smell, and how soft their skin is, and how smooth that their hair is? You know all of us probably as probably as parents or maybe even grandparents get so excited about that newborn baby and rightfully so because they are a precious and a wonderful gift from God. But you know there are evidently some people in our world and our society that in a selfish way claim that really babies maybe aren’t that important, that really because they have not begun to reason or to understand to a certain point or extent that really they are insignificant because they require such care and they are beings that are so dependent on someone else.

Consider the following statistics with me. Around on half of all pregnancies among American women are unintended pregnancies. Four of every ten of these are terminated by abortions. This means that about 22% of all pregnancies end up in abortion. That means almost one fourth of all births every year. Over the years since 1973 about 1.2 million abortions have been legally performed each year totaling since 1973 (when Roe vs. Wade was passed) over 49 million babies that have been aborted and really taken out in this world. Fifty percent of women who have abortions are under the age of 25.

On one website, I found some other interesting applications to these statistics. This says that there are over 3,500 abortions every day, 146 abortions every hour, and about 1 every 25 seconds in this country. Now that’s a staggering statistic. For every 1,000 babies that are born in this country, there are 312 that are aborted. So that is almost 1/3! There were almost 148,000 second and third trimester abortions in the year of 2003. In 2003 alone more children died from abortion than Americans died in these wars combined: The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Gulf War. At an average cost of about $372 per abortion, this is a booming business of about $400 million a year. Nearly half of all abortions are obtained by women who have already had a previous abortion.

We could go on and on with statistics, but you don’t have to read or notice very many of those before you begin to see something that almost makes you a little bit sick in your stomach because when we talk about abortion we see something that really is not found or accepted in scripture. On the other hand, what do we find in scripture? We find that, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” We find in John chapter 1 around verse 3 that, “All things were made by God.” All things! All of God’s creation! Therefore showing us the significance that God is the Creator and the giver of life of all things. Was it not God in Genesis 2 and verse 7 whom it is said about that, “He breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life?” Is it not the same God that is spoken of in Hebrews 9:27 that is said that, “One day there is an appointment for death and after that the judgment.” Who determines life and death? Not you and not me, but God Almighty! Now what is so sad about that is that there are many in our society for years who believe that they have a right to determine life and death.

What does the Bible say about a baby? What does it say about the conception of a baby even before that baby is born? When does God acknowledge a life within the womb of a mother?

Notice with me what the Psalmist said. By the way, David was an inspired Psalmist by the Holy Spirit, a man by God who was called “a righteous man.” Notice with me in Psalm 139 what he states here first of all in verse 14. Do you know that all of God’s creation, all of humanity is what? He says, “I will praise you for I am wonderfully and fearfully made.” He says, “I am a wonderful creation of God.” Did you know every human is a wonderful, unique and special creation of God? Now go back with me to verse 13. Why are we so wonderful? Verse 13 says, “For you formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother’s womb.” What? You mean to tell me that God made me, that God placed me in the womb? Certainly! Who created all things? Who set all things in motion? Who has established the order of all of creation and all of regeneration? God Almighty, and He plants the seed within.

David wasn’t done there. I believe he by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit gave us these things because he knew we would need them today as much as they needed them back in the Old Testament times.

Look at verse 15. He says, “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret.” Did God make this child? When did God acknowledge the making of David? Even in the moment of secrecy when no one else knows.

Don’t you know a lot of people who all of a sudden say, “Hey by the way, we’re expecting.” You say, “Really?” “Yeah three or four months have passed.” Well you see God knows at the very moment, the very second of conception. Why? Because God is the Creator. God is the one who set these things in order.

He goes on to say there, “When I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.” Look at verse 16. “Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed.” What? You mean God has a plan for me? God knows about me? Knows that I will be born? Knows that I will exist? Yes, because it is His plan! Even before my substance! Even before that creation ever began or the embryo was ever made! Then he goes on in the same verse and says, “And in your book, they all were written, the days fashioned for me as yet there were none of them.” God knows us. He knows the hairs on our heads. He knows every intricate detail about us before we are ever conceived and when we are conceived we are a life that God has created in a womb of a mother, a life as we read here that God knows our days. He knows what will happen to us and He understands the trials and the joys of the life that we will live. You see our God is a great, a mighty, and a wonderful God, and David identifies our God as a God who knows, a God who creates, and a God who wants to make sure that we will be all that we can be in and through Him.

We can go on and see many other things that are spoken about this. Remember the son of David? Solomon was a great king. In fact, he asked God that he might have wisdom. And what did God do? Because he didn’t ask for riches, God says, “I am going to make you the wisest man that ever lives before you or after you.” And so He gave him great wisdom. And you know what it is that Solomon provides for us in Proverbs chapter 6? He begins to discuss for us things that God hates. There are characteristics, there are attitudes and spirit that we put forth that are contrary to His Will and therefore He hates what is contrary to His Will and that which is sin. And guess what is spoken of there in verse 16 as he says, “There are six things the Lord hates. Yes, seven that are an abomination.” Well in Proverbs 6 and verse 17 look at the first three. “First, a proud look. Second, a lying tongue. And third, hands that shed innocent blood.” Is there anything more innocent than the life of a baby or a child? Is there anything more innocent than the life of a vibrant embryo in the womb of a mother that already has hands and feet and its own heart and its own brain as it begins developing from the moment of conception according to the plan of God? There is nothing more precious because it is made by God. It is made by God and the breath that is given to man is not any more significant than the soul that is created when that child is conceived because that is the part that is God’s. Not the part that breathes, not the physical part, that’s not God’s part. That’s the world’s part. God’s part is the eternal, spiritual essence that doesn’t need air that is from God and will live forever. And so again we wonder: How is it that people can be so cold? How is it that they can turn against God? How is it that they can disregard even what is found under the Old Law in the Ten Commandments? We read there the sixth commandment of Exodus 20 and verse 13, “Thou shalt not murder.”

We have no right to take the life of another, to intentionally choose to take someone else’s life for that is contrary to the Will of God and Jesus reiterated that same truth in Matthew chapter 5 and verse 21.

So we might ask this question: What could people be thinking? Well I will tell you what they are thinking. They are thinking about themselves. Have you ever heard the responses by individuals as to why they get an abortion? “I am not ready.” “I am not ready to be a mother.” “Oh, I’m not a person who is old enough. I am too young.” Do you notice what is common in all of those statements? “I.” “I.” It is selfishness! It is a selfishness that says, “I am, going to dabble in sin. I am going to have sex as I want to. I am not going to consider the consequences. And o by the way, if I get pregnant, I will just abort it. I will just get rid of it. I won’t worry about anything pertaining to really what is God’s, but about what I am going to serve my flesh with.” How bizarre that the world, our society, the United States of America has bought into that, and that people have selfishly have chosen to overcome and give up responsibility, to reject what God has said. Do we not understand that sin bears consequences? That sometimes when we do things that we are not authorized to do outside of the marriage that there are consequences and through abortion people are able to overcome those consequences and not serve anything for what they have chosen to do while in the flesh?

Let me say that in my opinion that if someone is old enough to involve themselves sexually by choice, they are old enough to raise a child and they are old enough to pay for the consequences and the responsibilities that they have brought into the world rather than to take the easy route and to abort a child that is given by God according to their act which they chose on the earth.

I find it also interesting that in the book of Luke, Luke chapter 1 that it is spoken there concerning the things of Christ that there are those who saw that infant in the womb. Do you remember Elizabeth there? It says that in chapter 1 that, “Mary comes to her and she speaks and as soon as she speaks, in her womb the child leaps.” Who? John! John the Baptist. The child was moving in the womb. I can’t imagine that. Mothers are so blessed in that way. But can you imagine, what if Elizabeth had said, “I don’t want this child. I don’t care what God says. I’m going to abort it.” Can you imagine if Mary had said, “Oh, I don’t want this child either? I’m not married. Here I have got a baby from the Holy Spirit. I don’t want to be seen as somebody who had done something. I’m going to abort the child.” Can you imagine someone even considering that? NO! Because why? It was alive. The child jumped inside of her. It was never conceived or considered that she would do anything but have this blessing from God. Oh how blessed we are to be those who can have children, who can have life, who can take part. But God forbid that we as men ever allow ourselves to get caught up in abortion.

You know in the book of Romans chapter 1 and verse 32 it tells us something else. When we allow not only ourselves but others to practice abortion and we condone such, even in our country, guess who is guilty of the sin. We are as well.

Let’s all be more cautious about where we stand on abortion. Let’s make sure that when we vote and when we speak out, when we hear our voices before the world in the name of God that we stand against those things contrary to His Will and that we make sure that we love God first and foremost rather than serving Satan, giving ourselves fully to God. Won’t you today choose to stay away from the works of the flesh, serve God so that you might have eternal life in heaven for surely it will be worth it when this life is over?

(SONG # 3 - “Mansion Over The Hill Top!”)

CLOSING COMMENTS

Let me thank you again for choosing to be with us today, in this offering to God. I hope our time together has been an encouragement and blessing to all of us. We invite you back every Sunday morning at 7:30, as we commit ourselves to this worship to God!

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As God has declared, may we understand the importance of life? Furthermore, that God alone has the power of life and death. May we never take part with those who would choose to play God! Rather, let’s make sure that our voices are heard for His Sake!

(Program closing)