A Biblical Worldview on Abortion - Voddie Baucham

good evening all right I need you to I need you to help me tonight I'm not I'm not doing too well this evening my wife and I just got back from a very long trip we were in in Israel touring Israel for a couple of weeks and came back home and there was sickness in our house and so our our children were sick and you know we have eight children and so when their sickness in our house there's this sickness in our house and so I came back and got sick and I turned 44 yesterday and I feel every day of it right now so I need you to do better than that all right I bring you greetings from the Republic of Texas you'll need to stop sending us so many Californians I am one myself I grew up down south a year a little town called Los Angeles and it is always good to be back here in my state of origin and it's always good to address my brothers and sisters on this particular topic this particular topic has meant a lot to me for a long time I have I had been keenly aware of this issue for a long time partly for personal reasons my mother became pregnant with me when she was in high school and he had been 1979 versus 1969 her options would have been a lot different and when I hear people talk about about abortion and the importance of abortion and and and why it's important for women to have that option the woman that they described almost always sound exactly like the woman who gave birth to me in 1969 and so I've had a profound understanding of the importance of this topic for a long time I have spoken on this topic worked in this area for two decades now actively involved in various ministries and organizations and working with a variety of pregnancy help centers now have the privilege of doing events like this in different parts of the country for a number of reasons and I will I'll share some of that with you in a while but what I want to do is I want to help us think about this issue in a more formed way because I believe that in some ways we are losing ground on this issue I believe we're losing ground particularly in the marketplace of ideas because we have you know as as we'd say where I grew up we've fallen for the okey doke we have we have fallen for a trap and the trap is that this issue is all about personal stories and that we have to have more compelling personal stories than the other side and if we can just come up with compelling personal stories then we can just win the argument ultimately compelling personal stories usually come down to who's telling the personal story and there are people with compelling personal stories on the other side there are people who will talk about having had an abortion and having had their life basically rescued because they weren't saddled with a child so to speak so if all we're about is personal stories then that becomes a problem if all we're about is personal stories then we fall for another trap and this I see in the political arena where now what we do is as pro-lifers we believe that the most important thing that we can do is have you know female political candidates because if you're a man you can't talk about the abortion issue because you don't have the personal experience or personal story bad move bad move because you have just let our opponents determine the battlefield which always gives them a tactical advantage what we fall into it because we already fell into the trap of it's all about personal stories it's got to be about more than that if for no other reason then we are people of the book and then we are people of the gospel it is not about my personal story my personal story has very little relevance why do I need to give you my story when I have his story that I can tell you the gospel is actually his story not mine but we don't believe that and that's part of the problem so what do we do when we find something like this this is a lot of law won't read you the whole article but I will tell you up front that I'm going to read extensively from this article from salon.com earlier this year or early yet earlier this year from January and the title is so what if abortion ends life the subtitle I believe that lights life starts at conception and it's never stopped me from being pro-choice now I want you to listen to this and you'll understand why I believe we need to read extensively from this as you listen to this woman's line of reasoning because basically pro lifers have drawn a line in the sand abortion stops a beating heart abortion is murder yada yada yada and she's going okay we'll give that to you and we still believe abortion ought to be illegal but listen to her here's the complicated reality in which we live our life is not equal that's a difficult thing for liberals like me to talk about less we wind up looking like death panel of until your grandma and your precious baby stormtroopers yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the women in whose body it resides she's the boss her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non autonomous entity inside of her always when we on the pro-choice side get cagey around the life question it makes us a logically contradictory I have friends who have referred to their abortions in terms of scraping out a bunch of cells and then a few years later were exultant over the pregnancies that they unhesitatingly described in terms of the baby and this kid better a half a point there she's absolutely right but he's people on the one hand would have an abortion and say just hello per cells but then if they decide that they walked a baby all of a sudden at the same phase at which they took the other life they will now call this a baby she's saying not that exposes us philosophically not that exposes the error of our position but she's saying get over it I know women who have been relieved at their abortions and grieved over their miscarriages why can't we agree that how they felt about their pregnancies was vastly different but that it's pretty silly to pretend that what was growing inside of them wasn't the same fetuses aren't selective like that they don't qualify as human life only if they're intended to be born when we try to act like the pregnancy doesn't involve human life we wind up drawing stupid semantic lines in the sand first trimester abortions versus second trimester versus late term dancing around the issue trying to decide if there's a single magic moment where the fetus becomes a person are you human only when you're born only when you're viable outside of the womb are you less of a human life when you look like a tadpole and when you can suck on your thumbs by the way sounds like our argument right cuz she's feeling it and in her opinion she's destroying it let me move down the majority of women who have abortions and one in three American women will are already mothers and I can say anecdotally that I'm a mom who loved the lives she incubated from the moment she peed on those sticks and is also now well over 40 and in an experimental drug trial if by some random fluke I learned today I was pregnant you bet your ass I have an abortion I'd have the world's greatest abortion that's brazen I know it's a human life and I don't care because not all human life is equal basically she's saying some human lives need to be sacrificed if they stand in the way of other human lives let me ask you something where's your personal anecdote for her what do you say to her when she steals your thunder on the abortion stops a beating heart argument when you say to her when she stands there and says yeah you're right I agree and my position has not changed what do we have then that's why I believe it's important for us to have a biblical theological understanding and approach to this issue and the way that we address this issue with our culture at large so what I'd like to do is just take a few moments and walk with you through biblical theological understanding of this issue and then I'll tell you a bit more about but I want to do it in that order why cuz again the my personal story is not what's significant here when you think about abortion it's important to understand that this is an issue that goes all the way back to the beginning all the way back to creation all the way back to the garden all the way back to the fall if you remember after the fall God confronts the sinners he confronts the man he confronts the woman he confronts the Serpent and the first time that the good news is proclaimed the first time that the gospel is proclaimed in its inception is there in Genesis chapter 3 in verse 15 when God says to the serpent I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed you know bruises heal but he will bruise your head there in that picture God proclaims the answer to man's sin problem but he also declares war in that moment the rule between the Serpent and the seed how significant is this declaration of war here's how significant it is in chapter 3 there's the declaration of war between the Serpent and the seed and the promise that the lay God is going to deal with man's sin problem is through the promised seed that comes through the woman that's chapter 3 and chapter 4 we had the first murder what is the first murder the seed of the serpent came and I caught him that because in first John chapter 3 John calls him that the seed of the serpent came kills the seed of the woman Abel God declares war and then Satan fires the first shot the very next chapter the good news is at the end of that chapter we're reminded that Adam knew his wife and that there was another son who came by the name of Seth then in chapter 5 we have one of those lists in the Bible that we all like to pretend read the case a man you gotta say ouch reading along in the Bible and this happened and that happened and then there's a bunch of names that I kept an answer to finding that important and in this happened over here in America every genealogy is extremely important in Scripture why is that genealogy important because God connects the promised seed that he gave to Adam and Eve and says to Noah 10 generations so that when the flood comes we know that the promised seed is still alive in the person of Noah and his sons and then in one particular son and through the rest of the book of Genesis we are tracing the promised seed where is the promised seed who is the promised seed to the rest of the book of Genesis there is this promise and there is this hope and there is this doubt Abraham was promised a son what's significant about that that his wife is beyond seed-bearing years God promises a seed the next link in the chain appears to be broken because this woman cannot do what God says women are going to do to bring about the one who will end this curse so what do we do we go to Hagar and Ishmael no we don't we wait for God to provide the promised seed Isaac next we have twins well it must be the earlier right no because this is not about birth order it's about election the older will serve the younger it's not Esau it's Jacob now we have 12 sons from a variety of different women how do we figure this one out well maybe it is Jacob was so in love with the one one one that they're going to come from her right it's going to be Rachel certainly cuz of this wonderful love story no he gets stuck with the other one one one the wife he doesn't even want he ends up having to give another seven years for the wife that he wants but the wife that he wants can't bear children remember this is all about the promised seed and then that he never wanted to be married to proceeds to give birth to Reuben Simeon Levi the father of the priesthood and Judah the promised seed the one he didn't even want to be married to very next book in the Bible opens up with what pharaoh seed of the serpent who gives the order to kill male children born to the Hebrew women the war between the Serpent and the seed and it goes on and on and on we come to the New Testament and amazingly Matthew opens up with what the genealogy why to connect you to Genesis chapter three in Genesis chapter 4 so that you know that Jesus Christ is the promised seed what happens next Herod tries to do what pharaoh tried to do why the war between this Serpent and the seed all the way to Revelation chapter 12 where we see this picture of this dragon in this seven heads in these ten horns and what happens there's a women was about to give birth and he is there to devour the child the war between the Serpent and the seed from Genesis to Revelation folks abortion is spiritual warfare and you don't win spiritual warfare with personal stories get away from me down well I've got a compelling story bless your soul it's spiritual warfare well what we just read from this woman this is spiritual if that's evil to be that flippant about the taking of life I wouldn't just have an abortion I had the world's greatest abortion she's talking about killing somebody she doesn't bat an eye on that kind of hardness of heart spiritual warfare this is a spiritual battle so what is our message to the culture at large our message to the culture at large is that gospel message and here's what we see that Christ through his incarnation vindicates validates and verifies the sanctity of human life at every point from conception to natural death how folks he could have come to this world in any way shape form fashion he chose God chose conception and every step of the birth process thus validating verifying the sanctity of human life while it's in the womb all the way to the end of life where God the Son experiences death thus validating and sanctifying even that part of our experience but here's the other thing he also validates and sanctifies human suffering God the Son suffers and dies he doesn't just die he saw and Di's say some conception we know that life is sacred and set apart because God has told us so to having his son the second person of the Trinity go through every phase of that process the human life of a human experiencing itself it's validated and verified and sanctified by Christ because he experiences it death as a part of human life he experiences it and suffering prior to death so that whether we're talking about protecting babies in the womb or protecting people when they are weak and foil at the end of their lives from being cut off from their suffering that Christ validated saw the same theological principle that's the story not my story Christ's story that's the one that gives us the biblical theological foundation upon which to build our argument even validates human sexuality and the way that we use our sexuality well now I heard about stuff like this now but think it was a movie about that you know Jesus Jesus you didn't do no sex stuff no actually he didn't but his first miracle is performed at a wedding the motif that he uses to communicate his relationship between himself and his followers is that of betrothal a wedding and consummation that's what he chooses to communicate what he's about and what he's doing and the redemption that he brings to his people we refer to as the Bride of Christ so that now this same Christ who for us validates and verifies the center of human life said the moment of conception until its end in death also verifies and validates and sanctifies for us the very purpose of human sexuality we must we must have a biblical theology of life we have to otherwise we hear somebody who stands flat-footed with something as evil as this and all we're holding on to as a personal story and truth be tell me let's just go on and be honest you set out there as I read that and you thought about what you would say to somebody who was just that raisin and the words that came to your mind will probably weep you see what when that having was on there is an answer but here's what you need to know because this is spiritual warfare we don't have an answer you know that is some sort of you know magical judo or jujitsu move you give the right answer to a hard-hearted person you know what happens they go find another question is it always like that again we've spent two weeks in Israel and lagoons and placed the place and we're seeing all these places where archaeology has verified and validated what we find in the Bible other where there's never been an instance where archaeology has invalidated anything from the bottle and so we have things that you know that people are Pontius Pilate really there's no record of a Pontius Pilate anything you know so I looked at this you the stone that they found with you know Pontius pilots name written on there and so then what happens when you find that the people go oh dude we were wrong the Bible says no they just go find another question they don't want an answer they don't want an answer they lost their eyes are blinded that's where this woman is see here's the danger of the whole you know compelling story side of it and again not saying the compelling story is unimportant they are but if we're not careful we think that what we're supposed to do is find the story that's the magic judo move that will melt the hardest of hearts so that we can win the argument because of our compelling story what happens when somebody tells a more compelling story than the one we don't love it when Paul goes to Corinth we read to him first Corinthians chapter 2 when I came to you I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified he goes on later in verse 5 to explain as of why so that your faith might not rest on man's wisdom but on God's power we preached Christ and him crucified that's what we preach we have a biblical theological understanding of the sanctity of life that's what we preach knowing all the while that there are those people out there for whom it will mean absolutely nothing because of the hardness of their hearts but you know what I'm not in the hard heart business and then I'm not I'm not in the hard heart business I'm just in communications our daddy handle sales okay I'm not in the hard heart business but guess what I'm not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation the gospel is the power of God not my compelling story the gospel now my compelling story may earn me a hearing now let's get to that part but again we have to understand it in that context then our compelling story may help earn us a hearing but that's all it can't be all that we have it may earn us a hearing but we don't rest on that we rest on the gospel and so here we are armed with our biblical theological understanding the sanctity of human life prepared to communicate that to people and perhaps I don't I've had this happen I've had this happen to me you know you're a man you don't understand yeah that's I do understand I absolutely do I understand because I sat at a graduation and all my eyes out several years ago to graduation couldn't even watch could even watch the graduation why because they called my 38 year old mother's name she walked across the stage and graduated at 38 why why because at the top of her class at 18 she got pregnant with me and her whole life was put on hold don't you tell me I don't understand this I get it I'm more than get it but I don't just get it because of that I get it for other reasons as well I did it because a man who's married to a woman and we've been married this is our 24th year of marriage and so here we are were married and God has given us these two children and we again we got married that summer my sophomore and junior year in college and people thought we were just absolutely nuts for doing that and we whatever mayhem finds a wife he finds a good thing I found my good thing like what you told me to read on the head you know non-christian people had but later had any problems as Christian people who had the problems with it Christian people overworked Joe you doing nothing you're married can't get married but you get man you got two more years of school where you getting married Jimmy want to give them their you wanna wait two years before I get married two years and we're crazy the rise of spending the Bible the strongest man in the Bible and there was godly man in the Bible I fell to sexual sin I am NOT wiser than Solomon I'm not stronger than Samson I'm not more godly than David I'm getting married I say and so and so he did and our first child was born 10 months later because we're what you call efficient so that hits my junior year dot you know it's our young child and I really thought we were coming they just you know they really felt real quick and so everybody just you know there's all this pressure so it's three years before the next child was born and then daughter was born forced firstly and his son and then we everybody everybody told us all together now you have the perfect little family I wish I wish I could say that we were strong but but we weren't we weren't listen to that stuff and so here's my wife second child is born she's on the table caesarean section I'm in there well yeah I'd go for everything man and so I'm in there and we're standing there and one of the hardest things I've ever witnessed in my life not necessary but after it when the doctor took his scalpel and his sutures and spoke to God on our behalf and he said with his scalpel in his sutures this couple no longer wants you welcomes you or need you in this area of their life anymore that's what he said to God for us when he tied her tubes several years later here we are convicted about what we'd done so we go my wife comes into me I'm convicted about been convicted about it's just watching this happen she comes back several years later my wife comes to me she kneels down before me with tears in her eyes and she says baby I need you to forgive me and like like most men your wife comes to kneels down in front of you she's crying I need you to forgive me I'm just sitting here going wow I'm kidding ready to start a prison ministry just tell me who he is and where I can find it and she says I need you to forgive me see why she said for cutting off possibility of God sending us any more children I looked at her and I said oh oh baby they happened on my watch I'm your shepherd I need you to forgive me she said do you mean that I said yes I mean that it's oh that's so good because there's this procedure and it costs so what to another doctor and we said doctor we want you to tell God we didn't mean what that other doctor said he comes back and he tells us there's nothing he can do one of the most awkward moments for me as a man as a husband ever because I'm extremely disappointed I'm crushed but I know that my wife is not only crushed but she's crushed because I'm crushed so I have to be crushed enough to identify with her but not too much so that I don't cross over more while the men in the house know exactly what I'm talking about and so both of us have been thinking about the same thing and we determine tweeze we need more children and so we determined that we were going to adopt and so we walked into an adoption agency and we said listen we would love to adopt two three four five kids that's alright with you guys lady gets up from her desk and walks away did not make us feel all that confident she comes back with a director of the agency she says tell her what she just told me so we would love to adopt two three four five kids from you guys but that's okay and they just start crying see here's something you need to understand there are very few black adoptive families in the United States very few in fact I got a call just last year from an adoption agency because now I hear from him all the time we do this is an adoption agency in Abilene Texas and anyway the call came from them they said if you guys know anybody if you can help us birth mother came into the adoption agency a black birth mother who said that she wanted her family to go her baby to go to a black family and he had contacted please listen carefully a thousand other agencies and could not find one home-study ready black family who would adopt this child that's what it's like that's what it's like and so we finished our paperwork when we get a phone call we did not even finish where our background checks it everything we get a phone call your match for the baby like what about you know we're supposed to like finish what do you how do you know this is what happened the lady comes and she tells us listen we heard this young woman's story and we knew that this was your baby said why young women had come into the agency she had called him after she had delivered she contacted the agency and told him her story when your earlier she and her cousin will driving around downtown Houston area they were carjacked and raped she was on Depo Provera his birth control shots which should have aborted any potential pregnancies so they didn't give her the morning-after treatment which would have aborted any potential pregnancies several weeks later she realizes something was going on she finds out she's pregnant she picks up the phone calls Planned Parenthood says I was raped I'm pregnant please help me he told her come in immediately we'll figure out a way to help you her own words now she sits in the abortion clinic looks up at the clock feels like it's taking too long and as she looked at the clock she says it just dawned on me this baby hasn't done anything wrong somebody will love this baby and adopt this baby eight and a half years ago she put that baby in our hands and that was our first adoption our next adoption was a 14 year old victim of incest we didn't know at the time that she was a victim of incest it wasn't until two years later that I had to go to a neutral location and meet with two plainclothes detectives so that they could take a DNA swab from my two-year-old in order to convict this family member who was 40-something years old so then people talk about you know exceptions for rape and incest they're talking about our first and second adoptive job I could go on but but but point is that sometimes if it's necessary to have a compelling story to get to what we want to talk about there are those and so we have a almost twenty three-year-old a 20 year old an eight year old six year old five year old four-year-old three year old a two-year-old and a one-year-old this is important to us this means something to us this is important to me from a biblical theological perspective because of who I am and who's I am this is important to me from a personal perspective because of my own story and the way that I came into this world this is also important to me it's six times over the last eight and a half years God has given us the privilege of saying to young women not only give your baby life but give your baby to us is that what everybody's called - no well I don't believe that I don't argue that but I believe if you understand this issue from a biblical theological perspective you're called to something we make no apologies about the fact that tonight we're asking for money I would never ask you for money for me I'll ask you all a night for these people we're asking you for money why because for some of you that's what you have to do that's what you have to give and so we say do that give that if that's the way that God has gifted you and if he's brought you here and that's that's the yes that you can give tonight give that yes tonight for others of you though there's a place for you to serve for others of you you can increase the number of people who stand next year when the volunteers stand for some of you that's what you have to give that's what you have to offer some of you can give money and volunteer amen hallelujah praise the Lord okay others of you perhaps God has put it on your heart God has put it on your mind to open up your home scary thing it's an incredible blessing it's an incredible blessing here's what's ironic we we have no idea no idea whatsoever if God's through sitting us children not good not wait we want we just we said we want 10 we got 8 but you know this could be it and we've thought about that the last few times and so now our our youngest just turned 1 at the end of February actually he's born February 29th last year so I didn't really have a birthday this year but it the amazing thing to us is here we are in our mid-40s looking at our friends who are you know becoming empty nesters which which we would be right now you know had we just stopped at the perfect little family and I don't know I mean wait I will be I don't know when we'll be we'll be retired before we're empty nesters you know but all we can think about is it's unbelievably sad that this could be our last baby we don't sit around and go home just hurry up this hurt no we we sit around and literally we look at one another and say and it wouldn't it be so happy this was our last baby if we didn't get to do this one more time why because we're superhuman because because my wife is Bridget the Magnificent and I'm half man half amazing I mean that's true but that's not why in all honesty the answer is how can we see what we see know what we know believe what we believe do what we've done and then come to a point where we say we're out of the fight because with people writing pieces like this the fights just warming up and whether you acknowledge it or not you are part of this fight if you can give tonight get in the fight and give if you can volunteer tonight get in the fight and give if you can open up your home get in the fight and give but by all means don't leave this place without making a determination by God's grace that you will put to use that which he has given to you to bring glory and honor to him and to proclaim the sanctity every human life from conception to natural death because it is fitting in the context of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ

Channel: Truth Endures

Views: 130,853

Rating: 4.9369392 out of 5

Keywords: Voddie Baucham, Abortion, worldview

Id: StUZsxyKrlU

Length: 43min 53sec (2633 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 19 2014