02/22/2023
THE HIGH COST OF ABORTION –Elder Harold Hunt 2002
“If my people which are called by name will humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land,” 2 Chron. 7:14.
Nothing in my lifetime has seized the attention of the American people the way the events of September 11th have. Nothing has caused us so much alarm. Nothing has ever caused such a wave of patriotism.
But in spite of all the alarm, we gain comfort in knowing that God still reigns on the throne. God is still in charge. Not a sparrow can fall to the ground without him. The very hairs of your head are all numbered. No matter how the adversary may plot, and conspire, and connive, he can never go one step beyond where God suffers him to go.
God is not the cause of everything that happens in this world. I wouldn’t have that doctrine for a minute, and I don’t believe many of you would. I’m not going to blame any of my meanness on my Lord, and I’m not going to blame anybody else’s meanness on him.
But God is still in charge. He does make things happen, and he does stop things from happening. Every evangelical, born again, child of God believes that, whether he knows he believes it or not. Sometimes, people believe more than they know they believe, and you can be sure that every born again child of God believes God intervenes in our lives.
From time to time, every heaven-born soul prays. Why would anybody pray, if he did not believe God intervenes in our lives. Why would he bother to pray, if he did not believe God makes things happen---if he did not believe he stops things from happening?
Very often it seems the adversary has the upper hand, but he can never go beyond the restraining power of God. In 2 Kings, chapter 7, we read that Ben-hadad the king of Syria had the city of Samaria surrounded, but God delivered Samaria. How did he do it? God simply made a racket in the night. That’s all it took. He just made a racket. The Syrians heard the noise; they said, “Lo, the king of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites, and kings of the Egyptians, to come upon us,” and they took off running for home as fast as they could go. The field was littered with clothes, and pots and pans, and anything they could do without. God does not have any trouble when he gets ready to put down the adversary.
There was a time when Sennacherib had the city of Jerusalem under siege. The city was in distress. But God dispatched an angel to the Assyrian camp, and during the night that angel dispatched 185 thousand Assyrians. When they got up the next morning, 185 thousand of their colleagues were dead on the ground. Sennacherib went home too. His sons killed him as he was worshiping in the house of his god Nisroch, and Esar-haddon his son became king in his stead. So much for Sennacherib.
In the late 16th century Spain was the richest nation in Europe. The Spanish conquistadores had plundered Central and South America of literally shiploads of gold. Their ships sometimes came into port listing from their load of gold. Spain had used that gold to build the Spanish Armada, at that time, the mightiest naval power on earth. Philip II the King of Spain was planning to invade England and put a Roman Catholic king on the throne. With the Catholic history of violence and persecution, that would have made an enormous difference in the history of the world---if it had been allowed to take place.
England later had a mighty navy of their own, but in 1588, their little ragtag navy was no match for the Spanish Armada. The English sent out every ship, every tugboat, and every fishing boat they could muster against the Spanish, and that was clearly not going to be enough. But the God who rules the winds and the seas had the answer. He sent a mighty storm that blew the Spanish ships north all the way through the English Channel and smashed them on the rocky coasts of Scotland and Ireland. Many of the Spanish sailors were never able to get back home to Spain. They, and their descendants, lived and died where they shipwrecked on the northern shores of the British Islands.
For years---before the revisionists did so much rewriting of history---historians called that storm the Protestant Wind. God has no trouble delivering, when he gets ready to deliver.
During the American Revolution, our little ragtag Continental Army took on the mightiest military power on Earth. We tend to think of our ancestors uniting behind George Washington and the Continental Army in their efforts to defeat the British, but it was not that way. The fact is that Americans were not at all united. Only about one-third of the people wanted to be independent of England. Another third wanted to stay with England, and the other third couldn’t care less.
In one of the first battles of that war Washington’s forces and the British lined up facing each other the way they fought in that day. But when the shooting started, Washington’s Continentals soon realized the British were shooting at them, and they stood a good chance of getting killed. They threw down their guns and took to their heels. When George Washington saw his troops running like rabbits, he took off his hat, threw it on the ground, (with a few unprintable expressions) and wondered if that was the kind of men he was expected to use to win the war.
No doubt, those men were about as brave as most of us would have been under the same circumstances, but you can be sure America did not win its independence, because our soldiers were so much braver than the British soldiers. God intended to plant this nation here in America, and by his own providence he gave them the victory.
In those days they didn’t have the mighty diesel powered ships we have today. Men can start up their big diesel engines; but it is God who controls the wind. Sometimes, the sailors of that day had to wait for the wind to blow in the right direction before they could leave port. For three months, at one critical point in the Revolution, the wind blew the wrong way. The British could not come to the aid of their forces in America. When the wind finally changed, it was too late.
For days on end, during the Battle of Britain, Adolph Hi**er sent his bombers over England. They blasted the city of London to smithereens. The R.A.F. had just enough planes to fight off one more raid. One more day, and Britain would be totally defenseless; the German air force would sweep the R.A.F. from the sky; and Germany could bomb any city in England at will. One more raid was all it would take, but he didn’t send it. Adolph Hi**er did not know how close he was to victory. God is the God of light, and he can give the light, or he can withhold it. He can keep the adversary in the dark any time he chooses to.
God is on the throne. I don’t know what may be facing this nation. I don’t know what misery we are going to go through, but I am sure the adversary will never go one step beyond where God suffers him to go. But, considering the sins of this nation, it terrifies me to think how far God may suffer our enemies to go, before he finally calls them to a halt.
You can be sure God did not cause those wicked men, who brought down the World Trade Center, to do what they did. God is never the cause of sin. He would never give man a law, forbidding murder, and then coerce any man to commit murder. But you can be just as sure, that those men could not have done what they did, if God had not---for one brief moment---removed his protecting hand.
It is because of the providential care of God that this world does not, at any moment, become a slaughterhouse. We cannot even imagine what this world would be like, if God did not, moment by moment, restrain the violence of the wicked. But, just as surely as God protects us and cares for us, he can just as easily deliver us over to judgment. God is longsuffering, but his longsuffering does not last forever; it does not insure that we will never suffer for our sins.
Almost in an instant, nearly four thousand people were killed. We have watched the survivors telling their experiences on television, and it just tears your heart out. One woman told of how she was getting an email from her husband, when the email stopped, and she heard somebody in the office saying, “It just fell.” Her husband was sending an email, declaring his deepest love for her, at the very instant the building fell, crushing him and thousands of others to death.
There has been a steady stream of stories very similar to that. Those experiences are, at the same time, the most heartwarming, and heartrending, we have ever heard. I cannot think of anything that has ever so touched the heart of Americans.
You wonder how could anybody be so horribly wicked, so absolutely depraved, as to do what those men did. Norman Schwarzkov was on television telling how, in Desert Storm, his men placed their own lives at risk to avoid injuring innocent bystanders; but, he said, “These ***** went out of their way to hit the innocent.” It is hard to imagine anybody so wicked, so depraved.
It reminds me of something one old elder used to say. The notion was circulating that there is no place of eternal torment for the wicked. That doctrine still bothers us from time to time. This old elder used to say, “I tell you right now, if there is not an eternal, burning hell, I’m in favor of getting one started.”
When we consider the wickedness, the utter depravity, of anybody who would do what those men did, I think a lot of us would say, “If there is not an eternal hell, there ought to be.” But there is a place of eternal torment. The wicked are going to fill that place up, and they will be there for all eternity.
There is nothing in my lifetime that has alarmed our American people the way the events since September 11th have, but I want us to look at this entire affair from another perspective.
Let me ask you this. How alarmed do you believe our people would be, if that same thing, or something very much like it, were to happen every day? Suppose it happened once a day, every day, week after week, and year after year. Do you believe we would ever get used to it? Or do you think we would be absolutely horrified by it? Do you think we could ever get used to the thought of thousands of people being slaughtered on a daily basis?
The fact is that the heart of man is so blinded by sin, that people can get used to almost anything, depending on how it is presented. It depends to a very great extent on how the matter is presented by the news media.
In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision, which said that if an expectant mother wanted to destroy her unborn baby, no state government had the right to interfere.
Since 1973, abortionists have destroyed about four thousand unborn babies---unborn human beings---every day.
On average, they have destroyed that number of babies every day, day after day, week after week, and year after year. They destroy more lives every day than were killed on the one day of September 11th. By now almost forty million babies have been aborted.
Americans take the slaughter of unborn babies in stride; at the same time we are outraged at what happened on September 11th. We have been brainwashed into thinking there is a difference.
They tell us the baby is not human; it is only a fetus. Of course it is a fetus; it is a soon-to-be-born human fetus.
God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations,” Jer. 1:5. God says that unborn fetus was Jeremiah, before it came forth out of the womb; it was not some indefinable something that might possibly someday become Jeremiah.
David said, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and sin did my mother conceive me,” Psa. 51:5. He says his mother conceived him; she did not conceive something that might possibly someday become David. He was David from the very moment he was conceived.
But in 1973, in the Roe v Wade decision, our Supreme Court decided God was wrong. David’s mother did not conceive him; she conceived something that might become David. God did not know Jeremiah before he was born; he knew something that might become Jeremiah.
In the first place, it is not the place of the Supreme Court, or any other court, to make law. That is the job of the legislative branch of government. It is the job of the courts to interpret the law. But in 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States took it upon themselves to make law. They laid down the law to the various states, and said every woman has the right to murder her unborn child, or have it murdered, and no state has the right to interfere. [Justice Harry Blackmun was one of the Justices that supported Roe.
He wrote the majority opinion in the case after the decision had been made.
The six other Justices who voted in support of Roe were Justices Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, and Powell.
However, the two Justices against Roe were Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist.]
It has been 28 years since Roe v Wade, and since that day, about the same number of children has been killed every day as those who were killed on September 11th.
About four thousand unborn babies, unborn human beings, are destroyed every day, and the news media talks as if anybody who is alarmed about it is part of some lunatic fringe.
America has let it happen. For almost three decades we have let it happen.
After people became hardened to the thought of aborting babies, somebody came along with a process called partial birth abortion. In partial birth abortion the abortionist manipulates the baby, so it is born feet first. It is delivered all but the head. Then the abortionist uses a scissors-like instrument to punch a hole in the back of the baby’s head. A suction tube is passed through the hole; the baby’s brains are vacuumed out; the skull is crushed; and the baby is delivered dead. It is hard to imagine anything more wicked, anything more uncivilized. That is something you might expect from cannibals and head-hunters, not here in civilized America.
Twice Congress has tried to outlaw the practice, and both times the President vetoed the ban. Those who tried to outlaw the practice could not find enough votes in the United States Senate to override the veto. It is distressing to know that our president, and more than one third of our Senators were convinced partial birth abortion is a good idea, and it ought to have the protection of the law.
I am appalled at the horrible depravity of those men who were willing to fly airliners into the World Trade Center. I am appalled at the depravity of Supreme Court Justices who would legalize the destruction of 40 million babies. And I am appalled at the depravity of United States Senators who advocate vacuuming the brains out of innocent babies.
I realize that many of our people have heard the abortion question debated, until they don’t want to hear any more. Most people have made up their minds, and they had rather drop the subject. But you and I are going to pay the price for all those aborted babies. Our children and grandchildren are going to pay the price, and they are going to pay in ways few people seem to have imagined. At least, I never hear people talking about the high price this nation is already beginning to pay. Long ago, God said, “Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” Gal. 6:7. That statement is as true today as it was when it was first written. It is true for individuals, and it is true for nations.
I want to look at just one problem abortion is already bringing on this nation. It is a problem whose dimensions our elected leaders seem totally unwilling to discuss.
We constantly hear people talk on television about the condition of Social Security. We are forever being told that Social Security is in trouble. They name various dates when the system will go broke. But I have never yet heard a news commentator who has the nerve to tell us why Social Security is going broke. It should not take a rocket scientist to figure it out; but they don’t dare say it.
For years we’ve heard the myth about the Social Security Trust Fund, about the lock box as they like to call it. The fact is, there never has been a lock box. Social Security has always been a pass through system; present wage earners have always supported present retirees.
So why is Social Security is going broke? Since 1973, when the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v Wade Decision, Americans have aborted babies at the rate of 1.5 million per year. Or to say it another way, we have aborted future wage earners at the rate of some 1.5 million per year. We have done that for 28 years now. That adds up to more than 40 million people---40 million people who will never be in the work force. They will never pay into the Social Security system.
By this date, some 10 million of those 40 million people would be in the labor force earning wages and paying taxes into Social Security. There can be no doubt that Social Security is in trouble; but there is nothing wrong with Social Security that another 10 million wage earners paying into the system would not solve.
That is the reason Social Security is going broke; and that is the reason it cannot be fixed.
Millions of wage earners retire out of the labor force---and start collecting checks---every year. And there are some 1.5 million wage earners who do not enter the work force to replace them. Those wage earners are dead. They will never be in the labor force. They will never pay into the system.
In another 20 years there will be 40 million wage earners missing from the labor force. Those 40 million people will never pay into the system. You cannot continue any system for long, if you constantly eliminate those people who pay the bills. Our abortionists seem never to have figured that out.
In 1935, when Social Security began, there were about 16 wage earners for every retiree. Today the figure a little better than 2 to 1. The number of retirees continues to rise, and the number of wage earners continues to shrink. At some point the burden becomes an unbearable load for the few people still working.
But that is not the entire problem. About the same time there are not enough wage earners to support the system, there will also not be enough working people to support nursing homes either. Both require money; there has to be somebody working to pay the bills.
I know this is alarming, but I’m not going to say, “I don’t want to alarm you.” I do want to alarm you. I think that sometimes we preachers get the idea this matter of preaching is a popularity contest. I quit worrying a long time ago about being a popular preacher. I have learned I’m never going to be everybody’s favorite preacher. I am not sure I will ever be anybody’s favorite preacher. But God doesn’t call preachers to run popularity contests. He calls us to preach the truth, and sometimes preaching the truth involves identifying sin and warning against it.
But back to the subject at hand, there was a time when people had big families. When Social Security began, it was very common for families to have five or six children; some families had many more. Those children provided most of the security for their parents in their old days.
More than that, most people grew up, lived, and died within a few miles of where they were born. They were related to half the people in the community. They had parents, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and brothers-in-law, and sisters-in-law, and uncles, and aunts, and nieces, and nephews, and cousins, in the neighborhood.
If anybody got in distress, they usually had enough kinfolks in the neighborhood to take care of them. Today, our families are much smaller, and they are scattered all over the country. Most of our people live in large cities and towns. We do not have the support system our parents’ generation had. If we get in distress, we would be hard pressed to find help without looking to some government agency. And abortion is steadily crippling and destroying those agencies.
People are moving away to find work, and our families are scattered all over the country. Can you imagine the cataclysm that is going to face this country when Social Security really does get in trouble?
It is fairly certain there will always be Social Security. After all this time, Congress would not dare to eliminate those monthly checks. They just won’t be big enough to buy anything. When inflation comes back, it will come back with a vengeance, and it will not take long for inflation to eat up those little checks.
They will always let you retire, but they will keep pushing the retirement age back, until, before one can start drawing a check, you will likely be too feeble to work anyway. By the time abortion has so crippled Social Security that it cannot do the job, and nursing homes are either full, or out of business, the social explosion that will rock this nation will make the World Trade Center bombing look like a firecracker.
We are already seeing another aspect of the problem. There are only three things the social engineers can do. One, they can lower Social Security benefits. Two, they can push back the retirement age. And three, they can throw open the borders, and invite immigrants to come in and take the jobs, earn the wages, and pay the taxes.
If Social Security is going to survive, in any form, somebody will have to fill the jobs, and pay the taxes. Those taxes will never be paid by those people who have been aborted.
In spite of all the protests to the contrary, our borders are already being quietly opened; immigrants are already fanning out across the nation.
As my wife and I were traveling a few weeks ago, I stopped to get some fruit for snacks. When I am traveling, if I don’t keep fruit in the car, I eat other kinds of snacks I would probably do well not to eat. Anyway, as I left the store, I noticed a stack of Spanish language newspapers with a sign saying they were free. The paper is published by Hispanics for the Spanish speaking population of central Alabama.
I’ve always had a weakness for things that were free. So I picked up a copy, and while my wife was driving, I came across an article about the effect Mexican immigration is having on politics in America.
It pointed out that, at the present time, 1 out of every 20 people in America is either from Mexico, or born to Mexican parents. In 30 years, 1 out of every 8 people in America will be of Mexican origin, and by the year 2050, 1 in every 4 will be.
They still have babies after they come to America, and those babies ---born on American soil---have American citizenship. It pointed out that in 25 years there will be enough Hispanics with American citizenship to control the swing vote, and decide large numbers of elections, especially, state and local elections.
The writer did not expect them to ever gain control of either national party, but he was sure they will control enough of the swing vote that both parties will have no choice but to go to them, hat in hand, and plead for their support.
Considering the hostility Hispanics have often had to endure, I wonder how much sympathy they will have toward our aging Anglo population, when they begin to have such power in politics. I wonder how anxious they will be to increase Social Security benefits to keep up with inflation. I wonder how anxious they will be to subsidize nursing homes.
Everybody I talk to tells me how hard Hispanics work at jobs others don’t want. Employers tell me they are willing to work 10 or 12 hours a day---long after others have gone home. I wonder how much sympathy those hard working Hispanics are going to have for our aged Anglos, who are depending on them to help provide our Social Security checks.
We have every right to be alarmed at what happened September 11th in New York City. We have every right to feel the emotions we feel towards those utterly depraved men who did it.
We have the same right to be alarmed at those men in Washington who say it is good medical practice to vacuum the brain out of a nearly-born baby, crush it’s skull, and deliver it dead.
I have just as strong feelings towards those Supreme Court Justices who paved the way for the cold-blooded murder of some 40 million innocent human beings.
I keep hearing that September 11th was a wake-up call. It was. America has been going through a nightmare. I can’t think of anything that has ever disturbed our sleep the way this has. But you have nightmares when you are asleep. We have been having a nightmare, but I fear that America is still asleep. It has been a wake-up call, but it looks like we’ve hit the snooze bar.
We are outraged about the World Trade Center. Americans have never experienced such a resurgence of patriotism as we have seen in the last three months. But, as a nation, we are still fast asleep about an even far worse tragedy that is still going. We are totally asleep to the enormous price our children and grandchildren are going to pay.
I hear people making all sorts of comments on television about September 11th, but I haven’t yet heard those news reporters expressing the same alarm that essentially the same number of innocent human beings have been aborted (murdered) every day for 28 years now. I’m appalled at the sheer hypocrisy of the American news media and the way they ignore news they ought to report.
We have every right to call up the National Guard and the Reserves. We have every right to strike out at those people who have struck out at our nation. But you cannot put enough Sky Marshals on airplanes. You cannot shoot off enough missiles. You cannot put enough men on the ground in Afghanistan to solve this problem.
No, the solution to America’s problems is not at the end of a gun. If America solves this problem, we will solve it on our knees. And if we don’t solve it on our knees, it will not be solved.
“If my people which are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land,” 2 Chron. 7:14.
