The singing of the doxology by the PCC student body begins Pensacola Christian College Chapel. At each chapel service, students have an opportunity to receive spiritual exhortation and enrichment during a time of music and meditation on God's word. This podcast shares selected recent chapel messages from guest speakers, faculty, and staff. Welcome to the PCC Chapel Podcast. Well, take your Bible this morning. Psalm 139 will be in verse number 13 for just a moment. Psalm 139 in verse 13. Good to be here at chapel this morning. Good to see all of you here today as well. I believe this is true. College students need to have a voice. You all are getting ready to get out into the culture. There's culture wars going on about all kinds of issues. And at the forefront of these issues, politically, in this generation, you are dealing with topics like abortion. And this morning I want to talk about what the Bible says about this. And I want to answer a few questions. Some of us in this room right now would say, well, Pastor Tate, listen, we know where we stand on this. We're actually in a very pro-life area, pro-life ministry, obviously. But I want to answer a few questions. Sometimes we don't know what to say when confronted with some of the cultures questions, comments, leanings, directions, and all of that. And I want to maybe equip us a little bit this morning. So take your Bible, Psalm 139. Notice what the Bible says in verse number 13. For thou hast possessed my reins, thou hast covered me in my mother's womb. I'll praise thee, for I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well. You say, Pastor Tate, listen, I'm not sure why you would come to Pensacola Christian College and deal with this topic. Obviously, we are pro-life here at this place, and from a theological position, I would agree with you. Christians historically have shared the same view on life, that life is a gift from God that is to be valued, protected, and promoted. And I share those feelings, but can I give you this morning, for just a moment, three surprising statistics. Three things that I found recently that opened my eyes to this. Here's the first one. Seven in ten women who have had an abortion identify as Christian women. Seventy percent of those that are having abortions in this recent study have found to have been Christian. You say, well Pastor Tate, listen, that, I understand what that is. Not all Christians identify the same way that we would identify ourselves. And I understand that, so I dug a little bit deeper on that. And according to studies, one in five abortions, or rather 20% of all abortions, are actually carried out by women who identify not just as Christian, but identify as born again. And out of those that attend church, studies tell us that only 7% of those women that had an abortion went to the church to get information, counsel, help, and guidance from the church in their situation. And I believe this is true, that we as young believers in this generation, you as young believers responsible for your generation need to be the ones that have the answer and begin to have a voice in this area. So this morning, there may be some right here now going, hey, pastor, I'm just telling you, we know all of this. We are pro-life here. It's not just enough to be pro-life. We have to know why we're pro-life. We have to have some answers. So three goals this morning. First of all, I want to establish some convictions. Maybe you're here right now and you say, you know, I don't really know where I stand on this issue. I want to establish some convictions. Number two, a goal is to confirm belief. You say, well, listen, I am pro-life, but if it came up at my workplace, if it came up with friends or family, I'm not sure what I'd say. And the number three goal is this this morning. I want to provoke you to action. The common problem in Christianity today is we are strong on position and weak on impact. Well, when we hear things like Amendment 4, Christians are not showing up at the polls. George Barna just recently came out with a statistic that said only 51% of Christians are planning to vote in the 2024 election. And that is a shame because every believer needs to have a vote. Three core convictions this morning as we get started. First core conviction is this. I want to base a few things on these core convictions. Number one, God is the giver of life. The Bible says that God breathed into man the breath of life. He caused mankind to be a living soul. Outside of God, we don't have life. If God took his power away from us, the Bible says that out of him all things consist. We would go right back to the dust that we came from. The Bible says that God is the giver of life. Notice this number two, however. God is not just the giver of life, God is also the taker of life. Exodus tells us that thou shalt not kill, but do you know that since Roe versus Wade in 1973, over 70 million babies have been aborted? Well, we don't even know since the overturn of Roe v. Wade how many babies have been aborted because instead of just simply stopping abortion, it's going underground. People are getting abortion pills from across state lines and you can get a mail order now. And what I'm hearing now is states like California and states like New York, they're no longer counting these the way that they used to count them. So we have no idea how many abortions are taking place. But the Bible says that God is not just the giver of life, but God is also the taker of life. And notice this number three core conviction. God is the assessor of life. In other words, God is the one that assigns value. Let me tell you about your life. You're not valuable today because of the way that you look. You don't have value because of how great a personality you have. You don't have value because you're funny. You don't have value because of how many friends you have on social media. You don't have value because of how talented you are. The Bible says that you have value because God gave you value. He says, you are fearfully and wonderfully made. And listen, I want you to hear that. There may be someone in this room right now that says, listen, I don't feel very valuable, but you were created in the image of God almighty. And God says, I don't make mistakes. You're fearfully and wonderfully made. And so God places intrinsic value on every single one of his creations. God assigns value, not mankind. So this is the meat here that I want to get to this morning, three important questions. These are the things that are coming up as you're watching social media, as you're seeing political debates, as you watch these marches that are taking place in Washington, D.C. These are some of the questions that the culture is asking that we as believers need to be equipped to answer these things. And the first question is this, and it comes up quite often, and that is this question. When does life begin? You hear that all the time. As president a number of years ago, Barack Obama said this. He said, when it comes to the matter of when life begins, that is way above my pay grade. In other words, I can't answer that. By the way, I agree with him. It is above his pay grade. God Almighty answered that question. God gave us value and God is the one that created us in the womb. Roe versus Wade said something very similar to what Barack Obama said. When they came down with that landmark case in 1973, Here's what Roe versus Wade, here's what the court said when they ruled on that case in 73. They said, we need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. They said, when those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary at this point in the development of man's knowledge is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. In other words, they said, if doctors and philosophers and theologians are unable to agree on this, then judges are clearly unqualified to render an answer. But can I push back on that a little bit? They said in 1973, listen, scientists don't come up with an answer, pastors can't come up with an answer, how can we come up with an answer about when life begins? Let me push back on that. First of all, in this culture we're living in right now, scientists and medical experts consistently, consistently agree that human life begins at conception. According to the American College of Pediatrics, they said that the body of scientific evidence supports that human life begins at conception or fertilization. Scientific and medical discoveries over the past three decades have only verified and solidified this age-old truth. The National Library of Medicine in 2021 put out an article that said this, a recent study suggested that 80% of Americans view biologists as the group most qualified to determine when life begins. They went and actually interviewed a number of these institutions, biological institutions, and overall, 96% of them, 5,337 out of 5,577, affirmed the fertilization view. I think that right now, as believers, we say, well, the Bible teaches pro-life, but you know, that's not medically accurate. It's really not scientifically accurate. No, no. In this generation right now, overwhelmingly, medical science is seeing that life begins at conception. But can I be clear about something? Even if science was in the opposite direction, even if science said we don't believe that, we believe what the Bible says over what science tells us. The Bible tells us, in Luke chapter one and verse number 44, that as Mary approaches Elizabeth, that John the Baptist, that baby inside the womb, hearing Mary's voice, leapt at the salutation of Mary. Very interesting, this word babe, in Luke chapter one and verse 44. The Greek word for babe here is the word brephos. It's the same word that we find in 2 Timothy 3 in verse number 15. Remember that verse talking about Timothy? The Bible says, and that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures. From a toddler, from a young child, from a young man. Your mom and your grandma had been putting in the Holy Scriptures into your heart and they've been teaching and training you since you've been born. It's interesting the word brephos in Luke 144 for that babe in the womb is the same word. brephos, that we find for Timothy that has no longer in the womb but now has come out of the womb as a child. In other words, God never distinguishes between a pre-born child and a born child. In other words, God still gives the same amount of value, and inside the womb baby is just as valuable as an outside the womb baby. Listen to what the American College of Pediatricians said. They said at the completion of the process of fertilization, The human creature emerges as a whole, genetically distinct, individuated, zygotic living human organism, a member of the species Homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and development. Listen, the difference between the individual in its adult stage and its in zygotic stage is not one of personhood, but development. What does that mean? Dr. Much, can you help me for just a minute? Would you mind coming up? Sir, in the little pullover right here, can you come up here for just a moment? I've got Dr. Much. Dr. Much, how old are you? I'm 69. 69 years of age. All right. Dr. Much, you were homiletics class. You taught my class, and don't pay attention to what I do. I don't want you to be judging me right now. What is your name, sir? Noah. Noah. Nice to meet you, Noah. Stand right over here, Noah. How old are you, Noah? 18 years old, all right, Noah, 18 years old. We've got an 18-year-old and we've got a 69-year-old. Okay, now listen to me for just a moment. We've got one person here that has obviously lived more years, obviously has more experience, obviously has more degrees, obviously has more value, right? If I were to look at these two right now, and if I were to ask you this, if I were to say, which one of these two has more value, which one is more important, which one is more, listen, I'll put it this way, which one of these two is more fully human? Well, what would you say? Obviously, one's got more experience in life, One's got a head start, he's been here for 69 years. How many would say this? And by the way, I'm just gonna ask you, we're gonna all answer this question out loud. There's only one of two answers, yes or no. All right, how many would agree? How many would say that Dr. Much is more fully human than Noah? You gotta answer this and we're all gonna answer together, yes or no. You would say, Dr. Mutch is more valuable, more fully human than Noah. Here we go, you gotta say yes or no. Three, two, one. They don't think you're more valuable than he is. He's 18 years old. Oh, I know what you're, I know what they're saying. You've got more, you've got more in the future. You've got more potential. You've got more things coming. Okay, so how many would say then that Noah, because he's got more years in front, you say, well, Noah, he's obviously more valuable, more important. He's more fully human. He's got more years in front of him. He's gotta be, he's gotta be more important than Dr. Much is. How many would say yes or no? Three, two, one. That's strange. Thank you all for the help. Back this up for just a little bit. Take this into the womb. Back it up, take it back to the womb and say, okay, well which one of these is more valuable? This is the quote I just read. They said it's not because of a stage of personhood, it's just development. Noah's not as developed yet as Dr. Mutch is. It doesn't make him less valuable, doesn't make him less human. And an embryo, a baby in the womb, it's not a matter of personhood. Even medical science says that's a person in the womb. They just haven't had the chance yet to fully experience and develop the way that somebody else has developed. Now listen to me. The Bible teaches that life begins at conception. Medical science confirms that life begins at conception. But can I ask you something? And here's the question you ought to be thinking about when somebody tells you that it's okay to take the life of an unborn baby because we don't know when life really begins. It's kind of up in the air. Someone might disagree. Well, I don't know if it does begin at conception or not. Here's the question you ought to ask. Shouldn't life always be given the benefit of the doubt. If you've got a question or someone else has a question about, well, when does life begin? We don't know. Shouldn't life always be given the benefit of the doubt? All right, we go on a hunting trip. I'm from Colorado. We go on a hunting trip and we're going to go shoot some elk. And we've got a few of us out there, and let's say we're getting ready to go, and I've got Dr. Mutch with me, I've got Mr. Brian with me, and we're gonna go hunting for elk. And we get out there, and Dr. Mutch has his rifle, and Mr. Brian's got his binoculars, and we're all kind of looking, and all of a sudden, Dr. Mutch through his scope, he looks out there and says, oh, I, about 300 yards away, right straight over here, three o'clock, I see an elk. And he raises up that rifle, he looks through the scope, and he gets ready to fire. And all of a sudden, Mr. Bryan says, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a minute, Dr. Mutch. I'm not sure. It does kind of look like an elk. I think it probably is. As a matter of fact, I'm about 90% sure that it's an elk. But there's about a 10% chance It's a little boy in a brown jacket. Mr. Bryant says, I'm not sure. Dr. Munch says, no, no, no. I'm 90% sure that it is an elk. Let me ask you something. How many of you would take that shot at 90% sure? Well, I hope none of us would. Why? Because life should always be given the benefit of the doubt. Well, what if I'm 99% sure? You don't take that shot because life should always be given. Pastor Tate, there are some people we don't really know, and I'm talking to somebody that's on the fence about when life begins. Well, if we're on the fence, life should always be given the benefit of the doubt. Let me give you a second question that's coming up all the time in our culture, and it's this. Shouldn't every woman have the right to choose? Hey, can you finish this statement for me? My body. We hear that all the time. Hey, you can't tell me what to do with me. Especially men don't tell me what to do. Christians don't. You can't tell me what to do with my body. Let me tell you a couple things about that that are based on a false premise. Number one, a civilized society regularly limits choices. I live in an HOA, homeowners association, covenant controlled neighborhood. Do you know that even though I bought my house, even though I'm making the mortgage payment on my house, do you know that I can't paint my house whatever color I want to paint my house? Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, hey, my house. My choice. Hey, I'm the one that put the money, I'm paying the mortgage. No, no, you can't do that. Do you know why? Because what I do at my house affects what is happening around my house. The neighbors say, listen, I don't want him to paint his house neon colors because it's gonna mess with my property values. Your freedoms are limited once they begin to infringe on somebody else. Hey, hey, my body, my choice. I can drink and drive if I want to. No, you can't. Because once you get a certain level above the blood alcohol content that you're legally allowed to have, then you become a danger to all those other drivers. You can't tell me what to do. Hey, once you start infringing on somebody else's rights to live and rights and their freedoms, then your freedoms are limited. Listen to this, that the same people that would say, my body, my choice, and fight so strongly for that are the same people that millions of women did not have a choice about getting the COVID vaccine in order to go back to work. They were told that they must get it. My son is a Marine, was told that he must get it. We threw out my body, my choice a long time ago. Shouldn't every woman have the right to choose? Civilized society regularly restricts choices. And number two, the time for choosing should become before pregnancy, not after. You say, well, Pastor Tate, sometimes women don't have the ability to choose before or when that happens because of what others do. That leads us to our third question that we've got to answer. What about the hard cases? What about pregnancy as a result of rape? What about the potential of deformity? What about the cases where a mother would lose her life for the baby to live? These are hard questions. It hurts to even consider some of these things and some of the things that believers and unbelievers have gone through at the hands of somebody else. But I want you to hear what I'm about to say. You cannot make rules for every situation based on a few exceptions. What about the hard case, for example, of life endangerment? In other words, a mom that gets cancer and they've got to do chemotherapy or radiation or something that would actually take the life of that baby. Here's what one doctor said a number of years ago. Everett Koop, he was the Surgeon General, he said, in my 36 years of pediatric surgery, I have never known of one instance where the child had to be aborted to save the mother's life. In other words, it's very rare. But let's be honest, I'm sure that it does happen. If a mother's life is on the line, if a mother's going to die unless something would happen, then two would die. Listen, the bottom line of this is sometimes we are living in a sin-cursed world. As a result of the fall, death, often is reality. But to make a case based on this could happen, what about in just in case, and all of a sudden to make an exception, or the rule rather, to an exception because of life endangerment, it just doesn't make any sense. What about this one? The hard case of rape. Some of you may know situations like this, that somebody had a traumatic experience, and let me just be the first to say it is horrible, that somebody would ever do this to somebody else. Can I give you a couple things about this? First of all, pregnancy due to rape, it does happen, but statistics tell us that it is very rare. But because of the trauma that is taking place, Only about .9% of the time, or 9 out of 1,000 occurrences of rape or incest do they result in pregnancy. Now, don't mishear me. I'm not downplaying the trauma of a person that has been impregnated by rape. I'm just highlighting the fact that creating laws that allow abortion across the board for every small number of the abortions actually taking place is unjust. The Bible says that the guilty should be punished and not the innocent. In other words, it's not the baby that sinned. It was a perpetrator that did that. It was somebody that took something that didn't belong to them. Listen to what Alan Keyes said. He was a presidential candidate in the year 2000. He said, I don't believe it's right to take the pain of an abortion. or rape rather and make it worse, to the burden of that rape down through the years, if that abortion takes place, do you know what I'm adding if I let you have an abortion? I'm adding the burden of that abortion. We have a woman in our church that came and talked to me a couple of years ago and said, pastor, I was the victim of incest in my own home. My family, I got pregnant. My family forced me to go and have an abortion. And let me tell you, she said, what haunts me to this day is that abortion. Alan Key said, it doesn't take away the pain of rape just because you had an abortion. It actually compounds all of that. But what about the hard case of handicap or deformity? Let me tell you about deformity. Well, we've got a lady in our church right now that her doctors told her that she should get an abortion because her child would have a cleft lip. just minor deformities, and they're saying, well, you ought to go ahead and have an abortion. I grew up here in this area, or rather, when I came to work on staff here in this area, I chose the Florida Gators as my football team. There was a guy that played for the Florida Gators by the name of Tim Tebow. Do you know that Tim Tebow's mom was encouraged to have an abortion because she had contracted a stomach issue over in the Philippines as a missionary, and the doctor said, because of the medication you took, he's gonna have some major, deformities, he may not have a chance to live, he's going to have a lot of physical health issues, he's going to be a real problem, and that young man turned out to be Tim Tebow, one of the biggest, strongest guys you'll ever meet in your life. Doctors can be wrong. And by the way, where does that line of thinking end? Well, this child is not going to be as productive to society as somebody else. Where does that line of thinking end? Do you know where it ends? Belgium and other countries have had a number of older people now that get some disease, maybe Parkinson's, or maybe they're just older and they're just an inconvenience to society. And so now they're pushing legislation to allow these older no longer convenient, no longer so viable as no longer productive member society. Now they're pushing legislation that these individuals can be assisted by the states to take their lives. I remember a number of years ago, I went to the Holocaust Museum in DC, and this is what stood out to me. I went up to the model. I saw the pictures of the soldiers that allowed these Jews to go down into what they thought was gonna delouse them. They went down into these gas chambers, and you see these soldiers, and I remember looking at this model, and as I saw it, I began to get upset, and I thought to myself, where were these soldiers at? Many of these soldiers came out later, after Hitler was killed and everything was overthrown. Many came out and said, well, we were just obeying orders. We were just doing what everyone told us to do. We didn't agree with him. We didn't like it. We just did what everyone else told us to do. And I sat there and I went, what are you thinking? Where are you at? You had a responsibility. You had a voice. You should have said something. You should have stood up. This is the Holocaust of our generation. And if Christians don't begin to speak on this issue, listen to me, nobody's gonna speak on this issue. Your generation is responsible for your generation. My generation is gonna be passing off the scene. You're responsible to educate yourselves and to help people. And so what do you do? Here's a few things you can do. Number one, believe the Bible. This is the handbook. This is what we follow. Not what the culture tells us. Hey, teach your families as you graduate and get married and have children. Teach them the values that the scripture teaches. By the way, some of you might want to have a little bit more information about all of this. We just did a podcast at my church. I think we've got a slide for it that you can go to YouTube and put in Castleview Baptist Church. We had Dr. Bill Lyle, and he's actually a physician right here in Pensacola, Florida, gave incredible information about how you can equip yourself and know what all of this is about. So provide Teach your family, provide support for crisis pregnancies, adopt unwanted children. Can I give you one thing and we're gonna be done? I made a visit as the, I was on staff here at Campus Church a number of years ago. I made a visit and this little baby with a pen, I want you to see this picture. I went and saw Caleb Gorman. There's a picture of him with a little pen right next to him. Just look, 25 weeks. This is 20 years ago, at 25 weeks, he was, matter of fact, I got another picture, he's got a wedding band, I don't know if you can see it, there's a wedding band, the next picture is right up near, over his elbow, and let me just tell you for a moment, that little baby that a lot of people said could never make it at that stage is standing right now, right, Caleb, where you at? He's right there, standing right there. That little baby at 25 weeks is a fully developed, fully human, valuable member of not just society, but a member here at Pensacola Christian College. We need to stand where the Bible stands on life. You've been listening to a message from Pensacola Christian College Chapel. You're welcome to pass this sermon along to others. Please don't charge for it or alter it without written permission from Pensacola Christian College. For additional information about PCC, visit us online at pcci.edu. Pensacola Christian College, empowering Christian leaders to influence the world for Christ.