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A Christian's Duty in a Day of Great Evil
By
Dr. Robert Rayburn
Eph. 5:1-16
January 22, 1984
(Right to Life Sunday)
I will not spend time this morning in arguing the badness of abortion. I take it as beyond dispute that in the sight of the One who judges the acts of men and women abortion is a vicious evil; that it is a most heinous sin; that it constitutes a flagrant offense against the law and the holiness of God; that it offends his rights as the creator of men and that it violates the dignity and the sanctity of God’s masterwork, man himself, in a most execrable manner.
Abortion is an expression of fallen man’s self-centeredness in its ugliest form - for what is it, but as Pope Paul VI said: “a selfish attempt to reduce the number of guests at the banquet of life.”
Abortion is moreover an expression of the most naked unbelief. It is and can only be founded upon naturalism of a very genuine and pure type. It amounts to an arrogating to man of the rights and responsibilities which belong solely to God and is based upon either the theoretical or merely practical denial of God’s existence. It justifies itself upon principles which cannot coexist with the biblical picture of God as a God of holiness, wrath, and judgment.
Only such a woman tennis star as to whom the notions of guilt, of hell, and of the law of God are utterly empty of significance would justify her own abortion on the ground that a pregnancy and childbirth would unduly inconvenience her tennis career. The next world does not exist in any meaningful way in the mind of such a person.
She has never trembled at Dante’s description of what he saw as he descended into the seventh circle of hell, there to behold the punishment of those guilty of violence against their neighbor; he sees them plunged into a river of blood from which they cannot escape;
“The river of blood approaches, in the which all those are steeped, who have by violence injured.
O blind lust! O foolish wrath! who so dost goad us on in the brief life, and in the eternal then thus miserably o’erwhelm us.
The mouth of the Lord has spoken. He has said through his holy prophets (Isa. 13:6-13) “Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. Because of this, all hands will go limp, every man’s heart will melt. Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them. See, the day of the Lord is coming - a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger - … to destroy sinners … I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless … I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, in the day of his burning anger”.
Yes! The mouth of the Lord has spoken, but the sound has not reached the ears of those great multitudes who are doing violence to those whom God has created. He promises to avenge their blood, but the warning goes unheeded.
But the judgment is not only in the future. It has begun! Is this not what the Apostle Paul has taught us in the first chapter of his letter to the church in Rome? Does he not say there that when a people has resisted and repeatedly turned aside the revelation of the will of God, when they have proved themselves inveterate and willful in their rebellion against God and against his holy law, that God in wrath and judgment gives them over to their sins, removes the constraints with which his providence would otherwise surround them so as to keep their wickedness in bounds - he permits them, indeed he gives them over to the most gross and shameful sins, the most indecent of acts so that their guilt and their eventual judgment might be multiplied.
Have we, in this land, not come to this point my friends. Is our society not described in Rom. 1:21ff. Are not the indecencies and shameful acts therein described a transcript of our current affairs; and is it not true that vast numbers in our day not only continue to do these things but approve of those who practice them - so utterly defiled that their consciences are no longer able to discern good from evil and have come to call evil good. Surely abortion ranks among those horrifying perversions which the Apostle can hardly bring himself to mention. What Paul describes in Rom. 1 is crude paganism, a life directed and controlled by nothing but urges and lusts. We are not wont to think or to speak of our society as pagan - but is it not?
When John Paton, the Scottish Presbyterian, first arrived on the South Sea Island of Tanna, the cannibals there customarily would do battle, tribe against tribe. The boy who carried water for Paton came one day after such a battle bemoaning the fact that the victors had polluted the nearby water hole with the blood and the corpses of their victims. He had no concern whatever for the dead or over the senseless killing, but to ruin the water; that was inexcusable! Is this not paganism - selfishness run riot, God-given values and principles trampled under foot - and is not the situation we observe today the same - our society has its arms in blood up to its elbows, but wails only for its pleasures. God has judged our society with such sin, with such a perversion of true values that we care more for sperm whales, snail darters and bird sanctuaries than human beings.
Beloved, be clear in your minds about this! God has given our society over to sin; he has withdrawn the constraints with which he once protected her. The abounding of such sins as abortion is God’s punishment for the sin of resisting his will and willfully refusing to heed his word.
OUR NATION IS not liable to God’s judgment, our nation is under God’s judgment; it already stands condemned, God’s wrath is already being poured out. The sooner the church takes note of this and trembles to see the hand of God lifted up against this land, the better it will be.
BUT WHAT IS LEFT FOR US? What are we to do who belong to Christ to do in a day of great wickedness and unbridled evil as ours? How are we to live in a world under the judgment of God?
The Apostle Paul addresses that question in the verses we have read from Ephesians Chapter 5. There we are told to live as children of the light in the midst of the great darkness of our world. But what does this mean and what does it involve? Well, according to the Apostle it amounts to two things - one we may describe as negative, the other as positive - two things which perhaps at first do not seem to go together very well, but which, in truth, belong together and must be held together at all costs.
- In the first place, if we would live as children of the light, the Apostle commands us to practice a certain detachment or separation from the world.
Certainly, we are to separate ourselves from these sinful deeds themselves. That goes
without saying. “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness…”
- But we know, do we not, that it does not go without saying. Abortions are being performed against covenant children with the consent of men and women who are professing Christians. Christian young people are much much too commonly guilty of sexual liberties which the Word of God condemns in the strongest possible terms. Christians by the multitudes are pursuing in haste the gods of our materialistic age to which same gods babies by the millions are being sacrificed in the abortion mills and so-called hospitals of our land.
You who have ears to hear, hear what the Spirit of God is saying to the churches. No immoral, impure, or greedy person - has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ … because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient.
You are not living as any child of the light, however often you may have marched in a pro-life demonstration, however many envelopes you may have licked for a pro-life mailing, however many dollars you may have given to the cause - if you are all the while indulging yourself in those same sins of immorality, impurity, materialism and greed which are, after all, the forerunners of abortion and its presuppositions.
But Paul says something more than merely that to live as children of the light requires separation from the sinful practices of our age. He says something even difficult for us to understand and much more difficult for us to do in late 20th century America: “it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret”.
The detachment, the separation, the disassociation from the world of darkness is not merely an external thing - it does not consist merely in a refusal to imitate the world’s behavior. It extends to the heart and consists in an inner revulsion at the evil and the wickedness of the life of the world. It amounts to an imitation of God in his revulsion at, hatred of and separation of sin.
- The light of God and of Christ must shine in our hearts for this to come to pass. Many stand against abortion who nevertheless show themselves not children of the light in this very way - that they have lost that sense of revulsion in the face of such a sin.
- A sense of shame is one of the purest experiences men and women ever entertain in their hearts - it’s the echo of the voice of God, but shame becomes increasingly rare when great sins become commonplace and our hearts are dulled to them.
I read not so long ago the story of an incident in the life of Robert Peel, twice Prime Minister of Britain in the 19th century. Once while yet a young man, he was one of the guests at a dinner party in a fashionable section of London. After the ladies left the table the conversation took a turn for the worse. Peel took no part in the storytelling or the laughter and soon with face burning red, got up and left the room. When he was challenged as to why he was breaking up the party so soon, he replied that his conscience would not permit him to stay. He heard the mockery behind him as he left.
It was a few dirty jokes which turned this good man’s face beet red - what ought even the barest suggestion of what goes on in those sterile death chambers in abortion clinics; so-called hospitals do to our complexion. But we, alas are, too many of us, too accustomed to this evil to blush or to be repelled by shame!
Is it not the case that what would have caused unbelievers to go red in the face twenty years ago, now believers can view or speak of publicly at length with no hesitation or sense of shame? Homosexuality or abortion were not subjects of polite conversation, the very mention of such things gave people shudders - but no longer- and at least part of the problem lies with the children of the light who have been, perhaps unwittingly, perhaps with good intentions but nonetheless really, sucked into unending conversation concerning such practices, watching and hearing of them on television, into the making of movies about them, into the public discussion of these issues. And has the result not been - search your own hearts brethren - that these things are more “issues” to us now than shameful and revolting indecencies. Things which make us angry, but are they still occasions of the shame and revulsion we ought to feel. Are they still something we find difficult to speak of.
- The living God, in his own holy book, can hardly bring himself to mention some of the sins of which men are guilty. You will find great sins identified in as few words as possible and never, never explained or described. It is as though to speak of them at greater length would require the Spirit of God and the Apsot his instrument to think longer about them - and this they are utterly unwilling to do. But what the Scripture is ashamed to speak of - we often have not been, speaking ad nauseum words which cause our God and Father to cringe. Can’t you see and feel what is being done to us by all of this blatant talk about the grossest of sins- the devil and the world are subtly destroying our capacity for shame.
Do you not think that, to some degree, the failure to stem the tide is due to the fact that we have been willing to occupy the enemy’s ground and join him at his own game - and once we have made abortion a subject of unending conversation, films and political discussion and have been dulled by constant exposure to its shamefulness, we have reduced it to another of that myriad of issues concerning which there is disagreement in our society and concerning which freedom of thought and choice is naturally to be afforded to one and all.
If there is any deterrent to the advancement of such evils in our day, if the children of light are ever to be the light of the world in our day, it will be not the political action of anti-abortion activists, but rather the shame and inner revulsion of a great company of the children of light, shame so great that they can hardly bring themselves to speak of something so despicable; a revulsion so great that when something must be said the face turns red and the voice drops away as though not wanting to be heard.
Augustine said of the early church: “The world was not overcome by fighting, but by suffering”. His word is no less true today. It will be the example of godly people who refuse to be stained by the world in thought or in behavior which will swing the tide if anything can at this late hour. It will be the example of their horror at such a sin against God, their fear of his judgment even at the speaking of such things, which will awaken the almost silenced conscience of our society and set it to speaking once again.
To be an imitator of God, to feel about things as he feels about them, to share in his disgust, his horror, his shame - that is what it means to live as children of the light in a world of darkness - and that it is, if anything, which will bring the world to be ashamed of itself and to repent of its wickedness.
So, says Paul, to live as a child of light means in the first place to live apart from the world and its ways - not only apart in practice - though that is all important - but apart down to the level of one’s thoughts and feelings - NOT merely to refuse to do what the world does, but to refuse even the entrance of the world’s ideas into our hearts - unwilling that they should by constant exposure to thoughts of sin become dulled to its fearful, horrifying and grotesque nature.
- But even as Paul pictures the children of light, shrinking back from the world, holding their noses against the stench of its moral and spiritual putrefaction - he commands us further to expose the sinful deeds of men.
This word translated “expose” is an interesting and important word. Sometimes it is translated convict, sometimes rebuke, sometimes “bring to light”. It is as full and elastic a word as our English word “convict”. It is used of the Spirit of God in John 16 where we read that Christ said that the Spirit would convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. It is used by Paul in Titus of refuting and rebuking false teachers.
One authority suggests that to capture the nuances of the word a phrase is needed such as “ to show someone his sin and to summon him to repentance”. So, even as we shrink back from the sins of the world, we are to proclaim the sinfulness of the world’s sin and call it to repentance before the day God’s wrath comes. “This is our message: ‘Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you’. Now you are dead, your sins are digging your grave ever deeper, but Christ is able to save sinners and save them to the uttermost.
Let the world, men and women, hear from us God’s verdict upon their sins - upon abortion and the materialism and immorality and self-centeredness which lie beneath. Let everyone in this room bear witness by word and deed as children of the light to the shame which has stained our land, to the wrath of God which is against us and of God’s solemn summons to repentance. Whether they will heed us is a matter left to God - but that we show ourselves loyal to our God, to his holiness is imperative and also our great privilege! Then let us tell the world one more thing; that there is but one thing in all the world greater than the wickedness of men and that one thing is the mercy, the grace of God by which through Jesus he forgives sinners who call upon him with all their hearts.
Here again, Paul’s prescription differs notably from what is often suggested as a Christian response to abortion or other great sins in our day. His cry is not to organize, or to apply pressure politically and economically in an effort to root out this evil. The fact that the Roman world was no democracy and was not sympathetic to Christian values would have made such an appeal fruitless - but it is not for that reason that Paul does not make it.
- I have no hesitation in saying that Paul's advice would be no different today in the United States than it was in his day. For he would never make the mistake of thinking that the struggle was really being waged in legislatures or court rooms. Such a non-religious view he would never accept.
- Our warfare he says a bit later in this same letter to the Ephesians is not against the flesh and blood but against rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
It is a spiritual battle fought in the realm of the spirit with spiritual weapons - the truth of God, prayer in the spirit, holiness of life, and love - those very things he mentions in v. 9.
I do not at all say that Christians ought not to involve themselves in political action - but I say this; it can only be as an aftereffect, something altogether secondary to one first and primary responsibility to convict the world of sin vs. God and call it to repentance before him by word and by life.
Beloved, it is not at the point of today's abortion struggle that this spiritual battle was most sharply joined: NO that happened many years ago, when our Savior was brought to trial by wicked men in order that he might be killed. And it was in that moment, in the very height of the battle that he said: "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews."
My kingdom is not of this world; my weapons are not the weapons of men - will we, or will we not follow in our master's footsteps? Will we take the matter in our hands and carry the battle to the enemy with the weapons of men - or will we recognize that this world is the kingdom of the Devil and that we belong to a different kingdom altogether and must do battle with another set of weapons altogether. To take up the Devil's weapons is unwittingly to surrender to him.
The weapons we are to use are such things as speaking the truth of God; calling upon men everywhere to repent; adorning that truth with pure and holy lives; praying with earnestness, and waiting upon God for that which he and he alone can do.
The world will scorn us, of course, when we face her with nothing more than this! She will laugh at what she imagines to be our ineffectuality. She worries that we might organize, or boycott, or get out the vote - but what does she care if those Christians, those weak, old fashioned, and gutless Christians continue to give their little testimonies do good works, man their little ministries to the few women who don't want to have an abortion, and gather in their churches to pray: saying: "I will lift up my eyes to you, to you whose throne is in heaven. As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till she shows us his mercy."
What fools, the world says - you don't make things happen that way! But that was Christ's way - love, purity, gentleness, sacrifice - and he gained for himself a name above every name at which one day every knee shall bow in heaven and on earth. It was in this way that 12 men turned the world upside down and by this means that the followers of Christ brought pagan Rome to its knees.
As Paul elsewhere put it: "For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds."
Let us then in this way too, walk as children of the light in the present darkness - whatever the future may bring. While the world heaps up its guilt before the fast approaching day of the Lord - let us be true to our calling to walk by faith and not by sight, to be in the world but not of it, and to keep ourselves unspotted from the world - a bride, pure and always ready for her bridegroom. Let us live with eternity and its issue clearly in our view.
The end of the play has, you may remember, already been written - divine sovereignty will ensure that all transpires according to the script; Christ has ensured the final victory of his righteousness, the ultimate vindication of his people, and a perfect putting right of all that man has done to man.
We can, in this confidence, leave the issue to God, and live as befits the holy people of God, speaking the truth, seeking after holiness, and practicing love.
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