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DAY OF PRAYER AND FASTING FOR THE SANCTITY OF LIFE
Wednesday Evening Service
by
Mr. William T. Devlin
January 26, 2000
Good evening. They'll know we are Christians by our love. It was a few short years ago that my wife was in a pediatrician's office with our then 4-year old daughter and 2-year old daughter. The phone rang. The receptionist answered the phone and said, "Mrs. Devlin, the phone is for you". Now how often have you been in the doctor's office, sitting waiting to see the doctor and the phone is for you. My wife answered the phone and it happened to be a registered nurse from a local drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility in Valley Forge. The nurse said this to my wife, Nancy, "Mrs. Devlin, I've heard that you and your husband are very active in the pro-life community and we have a young woman, 20 years old, abandoned by her family, just finished 30 days of drug rehabilitation, was in here for detoxification from a heroin addiction, an intravenous heroin addition, and she is now finding herself pregnant with twins. She's getting ready to go on a van that is awaiting her outside the facility which will take her to Temple University Hospital to have those twins aborted. The psychiatrist is encouraging the abortion, other nurses, the social worker, why perhaps even the janitor saying that these children will never amount to anything, the mother is an IV heroin abuser, the father of these children is an IV methamphetamine abuser or on the street called a speed freak. These children will be born deformed, they will have nothing to live for being born into poverty. And I, as a pro-life nurse, have spoken with the patient, I'll call her Sherry, and Sherry has said, 'I really don’t want to get the abortion. All I'm looking for is a place to stay for 3 days'." They'll know we are Christians by our love.
Well, what would you do men and women? You are there, minding your own business, seated in the doctor's office, there waiting to see the pediatrician for your sick 4-year old and the call of God comes over the phone. They'll know we are Christians by our love. My wife, without checking with me, I was at work at the time, said to herself, "Well, anybody can stand anything for a couple of nights and certainly we would welcome this woman into our home because we don’t want to be guilty of pro-life rhetoric, but rather we want to welcome her into our home." So, my wife Nancy told the nurse we would be happy to have this woman in our home, "What do I have to do?" The nurse said, "Well, she really has no transportation. You'll have to come out and get her."
I arrived home from work later on that day and came in the front door of our small, little, 2-bedroom apartment and there was a stranger on our couch. And I said to my wife, "Who is this?" The young girl was sleeping. And she said, "Well, this is Sherry and she's going to be with us a couple, 3 nights." Those 3 nights turned into a very long 4 months.
You know it's amazing when we decide to be radical for Jesus Christ what God will call us to do. The next morning I remember speaking with Sherry and asking her how she got into this predicament and I said to her, "I would really like to meet the father of these children." She said, "Well, I think he lives somewhere in South Philadelphia and let's go own and try to find him." My wife and I and Sherry and our 2 little daughters, Naomi and Sarah, age 4 and age 2, jumped into our Pinto station wagon; I was a seminary student at that time, so poor I couldn't even pay attention. And as we hopped into our little Pinto station wagon, remember those Pinto station wagons explode when hit from the rear? We had one. And as we drove down, I remember it was a hot August day and we drove down to South Philadelphia and Sherry said, "Stop the car. I think he's around here somewhere." She got out of the car and began looking around and all we could see were abandoned, bombed out buildings with no windows, all over. And Sherry began walking up and down the street crying out for her boyfriend's attention. "Joe. Joe. Where are you Joe? Where are you?" Well, after about 5 minutes of yelling at the top of her voice, we looked up and on the third floor of one of these bombed out buildings, a man named Joe stuck his head out of one of the windows and looked out and waved out of this window and said, "Sherry, I'm up here!" The ravages of drug abuse were clear upon his face as he stood in this window on this hot August day, with a sleeveless T-shirt, tracks up and down his arms from drug abuse. He was so skinny and I'll tell you how skinny he was. He was so skinny he could tread water in a garden hose. He was so skinny he could stand underneath a clothesline during a rain storm and not get wet. That's how skinny Joe was.
He came down the stairs and we interacted with him on that street in South Philadelphia and Sherry began to tell her story. Pregnant with twins, "Joe, these are your children. Can you help me?" And Joe turned to her and said, "Well, what's been going on with you Sherry?" And she said, "Well, the Devlins have taken me in and Joe, the Devlins, over these past few days have been so nice to me, that Joe, I would like to know if you would like to come live with them too." Quite a surprise. Quite a surprise. Yes. Nothing we had planned for, but they'll know we are Christians by our love.
So, we packed Joe in to the back of our exploding from rear Pinto station wagon and not to encourage fornication, we actually had him staying in another Christian family's home in our neighborhood. And that became a 4-month saga. And now, I am happy to report to you, that those twins that were inside Sherry are now 14 years old.
Now men and women, as we sit here tonight, and let me say as well that that began a cavalcade of interaction with drug-addicted, HIV positive pregnant women that Nancy and I have brought into our home. Now many people say, "Well, Devlins, you must feel especially called to this work". And I say, "No. Actually we don't feel especially called to this work, but we do want to remain obedient to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ because we don't want to be guilty of giving our opposition, the other side, an excuse of saying, 'Oh, you pro-life people. You're the folks that state or claim that life begins at conception and ends at birth. You're those folks, aren't you?" So, Nancy and I did not want to be guilty of pro-life rhetoric so over the years, we've brought in drug-addicted, HIV positive, pregnant women.
The last woman that was in our home, she was with us when I was returning from an Elders' meeting at New Life Church in Philadelphia. She had been with us a number of weeks and she had brought her little, 2-year old son with her, pregnant with a second, by a young man that was drifting through town where she lived. And she was staying with us and we had moved into the City of Philadelphia in order to provide a bigger habitation for our drug-addicted, pregnant women because you see, when Sherry came to live with us, it was just 2 bedrooms and the 4 of us. In order to give Sherry the dignity of her own space, we took our 4-year old and our 2-year old and moved them into our bedroom so Sherry could have her own private room.
Well, as we moved into the city of Philadelphia, into a nice big, spacious quarters, a couple stories and 4 or 5 bedrooms in the Logan section of Philadelphia, I was returning home one night from an Elders' meeting at New Life Church in Philadelphia and as I was walking up my steps, a young man happened to be crouched down in our bushes. And I turned to him and I could hardly believe he was there. It was a cold night and I said, "What are you doing here?" And he said, "Well, I'm here looking for money." And he stood up and he reached into the pocket of his huge parka that he was wearing and I said, "Well look, I don't have any money. I live here." And he pulled out a huge butcher knife and he said to me, "I want your money." Well, not knowing what to do, my first idea was that I had better get out of this guy's way. So, I began running and he began stabbing me with that knife. All over my body. I broke loose, I doubled back and as I was running from my house again, he caught up with me and he took one last lunge and sunk that butcher knife into the back of my head. I fell down on a car and then in between these 2 cars, face down in the gutter of Philadelphia.
I stood up and after a few seconds, a little dazed, and I looked down and there was this young man running down the street and I began to run after him, trying to catch him and talk with him and I noticed that I felt something in the back of my head and I reached back there and this big, huge knife was sticking right out of the back of my head. So, I abruptly pulled it out and I stood there and I said, "Yeah, I've been stabbed" and I couldn't figure out why my arms were so heavy. My arms were heavy because my sweater was filled with my own blood. It was at that time that I walked up to my home and Ruth, the young woman who was staying with us said, "Looks like you need some help", called an ambulance and I was rushed up to Einstein Hospital.
You see, men and women, the reason I share these 2 stories with you about bringing Joe and Sherry into our home and living in the City of Philadelphia and being stabbed because we happened to be, perhaps, in the wrong place at the wrong time, although if you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is sovereign, then you are always at the right place at the right time. Amen? And it was through those experiences that we began, my wife and I began, to very much appreciate the sanctity of life. The lives of the unborn, the lives of the mothers who would bear them. The lives of the fathers who had given birth and collaborated with these mothers to give birth to these children. The creation along with God's help. And then, of course, an appreciation for the sanctity of my own life, not wanting to leave my wife a widow with 3 small children.
And you see, men and women, I believe as we continue this cataclysmic pro-life struggle, the question for us is this. What shall we do? What the sacrifices that we will make as the people of God in order to love those who hate the church? Are we willing to be ridiculed for our beliefs? Are we willing perhaps to be ridiculed for bringing in children who are different from us? Into our home, either through foster care or adoption. Are we willing to bring in a woman who is drug-addicted or HIV positive into our home in order to live them? That's how I came to Jesus Christ because someone loved me. That's how all of us came to Jesus Christ, because someone loved us. Who will love them? Who will love the unborn child? Who will love the women who bear them? Who will love the fathers who participate in giving birth to these children? You know, as you have heard from your pastor, already our society and culture is straining under the weight of the blood of 35,000,000 unborn children. The question for us is, what shall we do? What shall we do?
It's very easy to criticize the other side. It's very easy to criticize the abortionists. To criticize those who would perform partial birth abortion. And yet, our job is not to criticize, but it's to love. And I know that I have had to take look at my own life and say, "How can I love the opposition? How can I love those who hate life? How can I love those who hate the church? How can I love those who hate the creator of human life, God himself?" It's a risk. I have to go outside my own comfort zones. No one likes to have the inconvenience of having people in your home and having to put up with the different life style and all their needs and saying up 'til 2, 3, 4:00 in the morning as they pour their heart out to you. But I believe, men and women, that the time has come for us to lay down our lives here in this heroic struggle that we know as pro-life. Because you see, the world looks at us and says, "Well, that's fine. You are filled with pro-life rhetoric. You know all the right words, but does your life back up what you speak of?" And, if I stood before you, if this were 1970 instead of the year 2000, 30 years ago when I said, "You know, men and women, in 30 years, we're going to have a procedure known as partial birth abortion where the child is intentionally delivered breach, feet first. The only thing left in the birth canal is the child's head. The abortionist, with the child dangling between the mom's legs, would take a scalpel, open up the back of the neck, insert a suction cannula up through the spine, into the base of the spine through a hole in the skull called the Foraman magnum, or Latin for big hole and then ram that suction cannula up there into the child's brain, flip on a switch connected to a suction vacuum 28 times more powerful than your home vacuum cleaner and literally suck the brains out of that child". If I stood before you and this was 1970 and I said in 30 years we will have this procedure that will do that, you probably would have said, "Not in this country. It will never happen."
And yet, I stand before you tonight, on the 27th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision of Roe v. Wade that gave us legalized abortion and we not only have, men and women, partial birth abortion, but we have worse. We have now an interested, macabre collusion between the university researchers and the fetal tissue harvesters and the abortion clinics where now they will ship babies' eyes, babies' thalamus's, baby livers, heads, arms, legs, anything you want, they will ship it on dry ice and you will receive it FedEx the very next day. The day before, the child was alive. Now the day after, the child is being shipped, on dry ice, FedEx, to university research facilities all across the country. How far we have come. How far gone we are. They'll know we are Christians by our love.
Let me conclude with a brief story. Do you know what I believe is the most secularized country in all of Europe today, and this is not to offend anyone, but I believe that the most secularized country in all of Europe today is Germany. Why is that? It is because, you see, a couple of generations ago, when the Germans were marching into cities, and lining up Jews and Christians and gypsies and separating the husbands and fathers and men from their daughters and wives and digging open graves and lining up these men and then mowing them down in cold blood and have these men, fathers and husbands, fall over into these open graves. Blood still oozing out of their wounds, and then covered over with the fresh dirt while their mothers and wives and sons and daughters stood there weeping for their dead husbands and fathers and sons. And then what would happen is, in many instances, in order to make an example to others in these villages, the Nazis would march these mothers and children and wives through the middle of the villages and you could hear, if you were in one of these villages, the weeping and crying of these children and the wives and mothers. And you could also hear the stomping of the Nazi boots on the cobblestones and there was one church there as history records, worshipping on a Sunday morning, the windows were open, they were into the second verse of their hymn and the pastor, his ear attuned to this, heard the cries of the women and children, the sons and daughters, as the Nazis were coming down. He heard the stomping of the boots on the pavement as they were getting closer and closer to his church and he turned to his congregation and said to them, "Sing just a little bit louder. Sing just a little bit louder". In order to drown out the cries of the women and children.
So, we sit here tonight and I say that why is Germany the most secularized country in all of Europe today? It is because, you see, the sons and daughters and children and grandchildren and, in some cases, the great-grandchildren of those people who ignored the cries of the women and children back then, they turn to them and say, it was only one in 10,000 that rescued the Jew. It was only one in 10,000 that rescued the children. It was only one in10,000 that rescued the gypsy, the Jew, the Christian, the children. And you are telling me you are Christian? I reject Christianity because you did nothing while the innocent were being killed.
What is our response here today, men and women? Is our response in our churches and in the Christian community continued apathy. A continued turning of the blind eye to the plight of the unborn. To the plight of our culture as has been said is the culture of death. They'll know we are Christians by our love. And if not us, then who? Let's close in prayer.
Father, we give thanks to you, the Creator of life, and Lord our hearts are broken, my heart is broken with my own apathy and how I turned my own blind eye to the plight of the unborn. And the other people who are involved in this wicked trade in human flesh. Father forgive me. And Lord, help me even tonight to think about who I can pursue in order to convince them of the wonderful beauty of creation. Lord, we pray for a revival amongst people who are in the abortion industry. Lord we have seen many of them come to faith in Christ, even the Roe of Roe v. Wade. And Lord we pray that there would be great revival that would sweep through the abortion industry that many would come to know Christ as Saviour. And Lord, speak to our own hearts tonight. Help us to love those who are in opposition to us, help us to love those who hate the church. Help us to love those who indeed hate the Creator. Lord, help us to ponder the question, if not us, then who? We pray it through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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