Last Saturday there were ten life loving Christians ministering grace and truth at the Lovejoy Surgicenter abortion clinic. Early that morning two men drove by the clinic with a young lady in the back seat of the car. She was clearly crying. It became obvious why she was crying when they parked just up the block from Portland's most infamous and murderous abortion clinic.

When the couple approached the clinic I spoke with them about their child, choosing life, a Biblical view of abortion, and this being a day they would forever remember as a day of life or a day of death. The young lady was tearful, but resolute. She told her boyfriend to “just leave” and exhorted him not to talk with us. She went into the abortion clinic without him.

The boyfriend told me that he was a Christian and didn’t want their child to die. I commended his loving stand for the life of their child and exhorted him go inside the clinic to plead for his little boy or girl’s precious life. He went inside. We prayed.

Twenty minutes later he came out in tears, saying, “It’s too late, she’s not going to change her mind.” He went on to explain that her parents told her that they would report him to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to have him deported if she didn’t abort their child. He and his girlfriend live together and her parents don’t like the boyfriend, so they were using the threat of deportation to force their daughter to abort their grandchild.

Out of love for this man’s soul, I spoke to him about his culpability in the death of his child. Having violated the Law of God in an ongoing sexually immoral, fornicating (sex outside of marriage) relationship, he opened the door of sin and led his girlfriend through the door. The terrible reality of his situation was that it was his own sin that was now leading to the murder of his child. I gave him an illustration of having a bank robbing partner that had successfully robbed many banks with him without a hitch, until the fateful day that a witness saw their faces. At that point, the partner decided to kill the inconvenient witness that would most certainly hold them accountable for their robbery. I explained to him that in a court of law he would be legally culpable for the murder of the witness even though in his mind he was only a bank robber and not a willing party to the murder of the inconvenient witness. Sin always takes you further than you want to go and costs you far more than you want to pay. "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23).

The broken man received this necessary and painful truth with soberness and tears. It was then that I spoke to him about the grace of God to save sinners. We talked about the reality that his testimony of being a Christian was thoroughly disputed by his ongoing unrepentant lifestyle of sin (1 Cor. 6:9-11; 1 John; James 2:19-20; Matt. 7:21-27; etc.). All this time we were standing together in front of the abortion clinic, in the shadow of the building of death. He received every word with humility and thankfulness.

Well into the Gospel conversation the man pulled his phone from his pocket, looked at it, and said, “I’ve got to go. Her father is coming and she says he’s going to kick my _ _ _ if I’m here when he gets here.” I gave him my cell number and a Gospel tract. He got in his car and left. We prayed for his repentance and salvation. We prayed for his girlfriend to change her mind if it wasn’t already too late.

The day continued. We ministered the Law and Gospel to many other mothers and fathers who walked right by us into that place of death to become the mother and father of a murdered child. An hour later a text came through on my phone from an unknown number. To my great joy it read, “Hi this is _ _ _ _. Thanks for your help. She didn’t do it. I want you guys to pray for her and my baby. I am on my way.” I stood with my phone in my hand reading his text while still standing in the shadow of that building of death, but the light of God’s truth, the light of Christ, shined brilliantly in the darkness as life overcame death in the saving of a child’s life.

A short time later the man returned to the Lovejoy Surgicenter abortion clinic. I imagine he broke the speed limit and a few other laws on the way back. He escorted his girlfriend to the car, and then he came down to the front doors where I was. There was a smile on his face and tears on his cheeks as he hugged me with many thanks. My Bible was open in my hand. The man pulled out his wallet and started to remove a five dollar bill. I said, “No my friend, keep your money.” He wouldn’t hear of it. He stuck the five dollar bill in my Bible and said, “You stood out here in the cold (it was below freezing that morning) for me, my girlfriend, and my baby…the very least I can do is buy you a coffee.” We prayed together. I exhorted him to go and sin no more. He hugged me again and left.

We live in a world of much darkness and death, a world where 1.3 billion children have been murdered through abortion since 1980. Praise God from whom all blessings come; a life was saved last Saturday; a man and woman received much love, grace, and Gospel truth; light shown in the darkness.