Pro-Life Truths

Fifteen Pro-Life Truths to Speak

by: John Piper

1. Existing fetal homicide laws make a man guilty of manslaughter if he kills the baby in a mother's womb (except in the case of abortion).

2. Fetal surgery is performed on babies in the womb to save them while another child the same age is being legally destroyed.

3. Babies can sometimes survive on their own at 23 or 24 weeks, but abortion is legal beyond this limit.

4. Living on its own is not the criterion of human personhood, as we know from the use of respirators and dialysis.

5. Size is irrelevant to human personhood, as we know from the difference between a one-week-old and a six-year-old.

6. Developed reasoning powers are not the criterion of personhood, as we know from the capacities of three-month-old babies.

7. Infants in the womb are human beings scientifically by virtue of their genetic make up.

8. Ultrasound has given a stunning window on the womb that shows the unborn at eight weeks sucking his thumb, recoiling from pricking, responding to sound. All the organs are present, the brain is functioning, the heart is pumping, the liver is making blood cells, the kidneys are cleaning fluids, and there is a fingerprint. Virtually all abortions happen later than this date.

9. Justice dictates that when two legitimate rights conflict, the limitation of rights that does the least harm is the most just. Bearing a child for adoption does less harm than killing him.

10. Justice dictates that when either of two people must be inconvenienced or hurt to alleviate their united predicament, the one who bore the greater responsibility for the predicament should bear more of the inconvenience or hurt to alleviate it.

11. Justice dictates that a person may not coerce harm on another person by threatening voluntary harm on themselves.

12. The outcast and the disadvantaged and exploited are to be cared for in a special way, especially those with no voice of their own.

13. What is happening in the womb is the unique person-nurturing work of God, who alone has the right to give and take life.

14. There are countless clinics that offer life and hope to both mother and child (and father and parents), with care of every kind lovingly provided by people who will meet every need they can.

15. Jesus Christ can forgive all sins, and will give all who trusts him the help they need to do everything that life requires.

Piper

Lincoln’s Logic on Slavery Applied to Abortion

January 22, 2009 | By: John Piper
Category: Commentary

On January 12, 2009 Samantha Heiges, age 23, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for drowning her newborn in Burnsville, Minnesota. If she had arranged for a doctor to kill the child a few weeks earlier she would be a free woman.

What are the differences between this child before and after birth that would justify it’s protection just after birth but not just before? There are none. This is why Abraham Lincoln’s reasoning about slavery is relevant in ways he could not foresee. He wrote:

You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you. (“Fragments: On Slavery")

There are no morally relevant differences between white and black or between child-in-the-womb and child-outside-the-womb that would give a right to either to enslave or kill the other.

Be Fully Convinced...

There is a great article from Pulpit Magazine about Honoring God In Gray Areas from a couple of days ago. In it, there is a list of seven questions that are helpful in making decisions that are not necessarily black or white in scripture.

I know that my tendency is to claim absolutes on certain "gray" issues that I have either:

A) been firmly convicted of
or
B) are easy to apply to my life

Where I find myself resting in gray areas are those places where my flesh struggles to apply biblical truth and/or conviction. There are not really "gray" areas where God allows us to waiver and sit on the fence. There is no glory in professing that God does not care.

"But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does." James 1: 6-8

He does however allow for liberty in making certain decisions that may differ from one christian to the next. (gasp)

Oh, does this ever challenge me! Especially in those areas that I mentioned above (A & B) because, come on! On those issues where we stand so firmly it is so obvious, right? How could someone not come to the exact same determination?

Thank you God for grace.

It has required daily humility and reverence for God...His ways...His revelation...His purpose, so that I do not diminish His sovereign ability to convict through both the Word and the Holy Spirit.

Notice His ability. He is able.

"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us..." Ephesians 3:20

Piper has a wonderful sermon (as usual!) about being fully convinced, no matter what the issue. And have mercy there are some issues, aren't there?

Homeschool, television, alcohol, modesty.....the list is endless and different for everyone. Piper asks these three simple questions which make a very complex decision quite simple.

1.) Is it sinful?
2.) Is it honoring to Christ?
3.) Is it the best way I can think for me to act in this situation?

Then the hard part. Be convicted and convinced and honor Him in your decision.

Therefore, I do not say to you, “Lighten up.” Or, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Rather I say, “Stand in awe of the risen Christ who will get his glory from the living and from the dead and from the eaters and the abstainers and from the day-keepers and the non-day-keepers. Stand in awe of Jesus Christ. And whatever you do, whether you eat or whether you drink, do all to the glory of Christ (1 Corinthians 10:31).

John Piper

It will knock their ideas cuckoo...

I love John Piper....

Beg

Here I am
One more day of not
Loving Him the way He asks
In fact my heart is singing praises to
the things That make me feel alright

So I'm sinking fast like a stone heart should
And on the way down
I've done what I could
To try and try to turn this stone to flesh

I'm haunted by my God
Who has the right to ask me
What by the nature of my rebellion
I cannot give.

So I beg for you to move
I beg for you to move
I beg for you to break through

So here I am
Got my deeds for the day
All my cute little words about
How I am saved

Am I saved?

Could I love you with my mouth like a church kid should
At the end of the day
My words get burned as wood
Oh, but I was good.

I'm haunted by my God
Who has the right to ask me
What by the nature of my rebellion
I cannot give.

These songs are noise
In your ears
A clanging drum
You want my love

Song Description:"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law? And He said to them, 'You SHALL love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment'." (Matt 22:36-37)

This is A LOT of love! Is it even possible? "God has the right to COMMAND of me what, by the nature of my profound rebellion, I cannot give." (John Piper) I WANT to love Him, like he asks. But I don't. So... I beg." - Shane Barnard

What He Said...

I have always felt this way about women in combat. Piper has a way of articulating thoughts so that they make absolute perfect sense.

I love perfect sense, especially when it centers around God's design, which is always perfect.

He followed up with this article.