Slaves to Sin

Every Monday, my day of counseling women to choose life on the sidewalks of Charlotte's busiest abortion mill, I learn something. I was feeling a little battered before I went, but I'd prayed a lot, and knew others were praying for me, and that always helps. Anyway, it was frigid cold. Much colder than I had expected. That takes all the fun out of it. Oh wait...there is no fun to start with. You get my point.

Anyway, many women took our literature and several carloads of abortion-minded couples stopped to talk with us. Many couples seemed conflicted, and sat in their cars a long time, reading the literature and apparently discussing it. I made impassioned pleas on the microphone about the Christmas season, when we celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus who grew up expressly to die for our sins. That alone should stop anyone considering abortion from doing what they intended to do. Every Christmas from this one forward, they would remember not the Savior who willingly sacrificed His own life to save others, but their baby who they willingly sacrificed to save themselves . What a terrible way to start the holiday season of peace, joy and hope.

Then a Spanish couple stopped their car. Fellow counselor Chrissy called our Spanish counselor on the phone, while I pulled out my cheat sheet of "Spanish Phrases to Use at the Abortion Mill." For someone who last took Spanish in 4th grade, I don't think I did too badly. They spoke no English at all, but I learned the man was the father of the baby, and that they both believed in God, that they believed abortion was sin, and murder. I was able to convey that they could see their baby for free on the mobile ultrasound unit on the RV in front of us.(That last phrase was not on my cheat sheet, so I improvised. I pointed to my eyes, then my stomach and said "bebe" (baby) and then pointed at the RV "no dinero" (no money.)) Fortunately, by then we got our Spanish counselor on the phone. The couple told her they would go on our ultrasound, but then pulled into the mill parking lot anyway. So I got on the mic, and spent five minutes speaking Spanish about why they should not abort their baby. I'll bet that amused the people in the waiting room. That was a first, and I hope I was saying what I thought I was saying.

One couple left, all smiles, before the abortionist arrived and told us they chose life. Yay.

Then a young woman came out of the clinic and came striding over.
"Are you coming for our literature?" I asked. (I'm always a little afraid they are coming to punch me, but she was actually very polite and nice.)
"I already had an abortion," she told us, "I'm here for a check-up. But I wanted to tell you that if you love Jesus then you would not condemn."
"We're not condemning," I told her, "God alone does that."
"The Bible says to treat others with love," she said.
"Why do you think we are out here, freezing, volunteering our time? Is it loving to let someone continue on a path that you know is headed to destruction and not try to stop them?" I asked.
"I don't think they are headed for destruction. I'm a Bible student in college and I know what the Bible says. How can you claim to judge what is right or wrong for someone else?"
"I can't, unless the Bible is clear and the Bible is clear on this."
"That's your opinion."
"You are a bible scholar?"
"Yes."
"Then tell me, is there a single verse in the Bible that says the baby in the womb is not created by God or is not human, or is not loved by Him?"
She paused.
"Now contrast that," I told her, "With all the verses that talk of how from the moment of conception God knew us, loved us, in the womb, for we are wonderfully and fearfully made. If you can't find any, I have several here."
"Wait, I'm still thinking...."
"While you're thinking, can you think of a single verse in the Bible where God doesn't call the killing of an innocent human being murder?"
"I can't come up with any off the top of my head..."
"That's because there aren't any," I said, "And there aren't any verses to indicate the baby in the womb is anything but a cherished blessing, a human being loved and created and known by God."
"I don't think abortion is murder..."
"This is not about what you think," I said, "If you claim God as your savior, and the Bible as your authority, then what does it say? I have given you many verses of why abortion is murder. You cannot support your view with a single verse."
She paused, and didn't speak.
"So you mean God won't forgive people if they abort their baby?" she asked, changing tactics.
"That is between them and God. But I do have a whole 5 pages of verses that tell us what God says when we know the truth and we willingly and repeatedly go forth and disobey Him anyway. Hebrews 10:26 says: For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no sacrifice for sins."
"All sin is equal before God, sin is sin. We all sin," she insisted.  She seemed a little less certain now of her position.
"Yes we do, and all sin is equal in terms of our eternal salvation in that all sin separates us from our Holy God, but not in terms of judgment and consequences. There are sins that will be dealt with more severely and sins that grieve God more deeply."
"But if you repent..."
Chrissy took over dealing with what it meant to truly repent. She continued to explain that to commit a sin knowingly with the idea of repenting later is clearly not supported Biblically. (In fact, Paul decimates that line of thinking in Romans 6.)
"But," said the Bible scholar, "Those aborted babies go to heaven anyway, so it's not murder."
"Every believer goes to heaven anyway -- is it not murder if you shoot me now?" I said, incredulous about her line of reasoning.
"That's different."
"Why? Is a one-year-old of any less value than her?" asked Chrissy, pointing to me.
"No."
"How about an unborn baby?" I asked.
"Yes."
"What makes her, that unborn child, of less value?"
"She just is..."
"At what point does she become of less value?" I asked.
The Bible scholar didn't really have an answer.

At that point, we were missing out on other cars flocking into the lot, so we broke away and began flagging down the new mamas approaching the throne of death. The Bible Scholar left, but I am hopeful that her heart and mind were pricked and those verses she could not call up to justify killing the unborn will lead her to true repentance. By the way, we tried to give her a pamphlet about healing following abortion, but she wouldn't take it.

A woman scurried out then, and  put her purse in the car, signaling she was about to have a surgical abortion. The abortionist arrived. Not 5 minutes later, the woman and her boyfriend returned to the car and drove away. We knew that was not enough time to have had the surgery, so it was baby #2 that day that was still safe in the womb.

It struck me forcibly ( as it often does) the lengths to which we will go to justify doing what we know is wrong. Most of the women we speak to at this abortion mill claim to know God. Over and over we hear the argument, "I know it is wrong, but God will forgive me." God is a merciful God, but He is also just and He will not be mocked. This argument is a mockery of righteousness and of God's mercy and grace, what others have called "cheap grace."

I drove home, shivering from the extended time out in the cold. Pouring myself  a large cup of hot tea, I opened my Bible, and read: Is it not from the mouth of the most High that both calamities and good things come? Why should the living complain when punished for their sins? Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord." (Lamentations 3: 38-40)

Examine our ways. Test them. Return to the Lord.
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Romans 6: 6-18

6 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ We know that our old self^[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For one who has died has been set free^[b] from sin. ⁸ Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰ For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. ¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
¹² Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. ¹³ Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴ For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
¹⁵ What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶ Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves,^[c] you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷ But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, ¹⁸ and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.