Paul Carrington's sermon titled 'Abortion - The Shedding of Innocent Blood' is a profound exploration of the ethical and spiritual dimensions of abortion, drawing from Ezekiel chapter nine. Carrington discusses the widespread sin and bloodshed in ancient Israel and draws parallels to modern issues of abortion, framing it as a significant moral and spiritual crisis. He emphasizes the role of the church as a moral conscience and calls for a collective sighing and crying over societal abominations. The sermon highlights the importance of repentance and the transformative power of God's forgiveness, particularly for those who have participated in abortion. Carrington uses the historical example of William Wilberforce's long battle against the slave trade to inspire persistent advocacy for the sanctity of life. He concludes by urging the church to take a stand and engage in spiritual warfare to bring about change, emphasizing that the nation's preservation is contingent upon repentance and turning away from sins like abortion.

You could please take out your Bibles and open up to the ninth chapter of Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter nine. We'll be spending time here on a very difficult topic, but one that the elders had tasked me with to preach here this morning. It's going to be on the topic of abortion, really the the ethical issue of our time. And so let's read this together.

Ezekiel the ninth chapter. Verse 1, then he called out in my hearing with a loud voice saying let those who have charge over the city draw near each with a deadly weapon in his hand and suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate which faced north, each with his battle axe in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's ink horn at his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar. Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been to the threshold of the temple.

And he called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's ink horn at his side. And the Lord said to him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations that are done in it. To the others, he said in my hearing, go after him throughout the city and kill. Do not let your eyes spare, nor have any pity. Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women, but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark and begin at my sanctuary.' So they began with the elders who were before the temple.

Then he said to them, defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go out. And they went out and killed in the city. So it was that while they were killing them I was left alone and I fell on my face and cried out and said, Ah, Lord God, will you destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out your fury on Jerusalem? Then he said to me, the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed and the city full of perversity for they say the Lord has forsaken the land and the Lord does not see and as for me also my eye will neither spare nor will I have pity but I will recompense their deeds on their own head.

Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the ink horn at his side, reported back and said, I have done as you commanded me. Let's pray. Lord, we approach you here this morning as we've already done in prayer and in song and come before you here this morning in trembling, Lord, before your word, your holy word. And Father, we pray we intercede on behalf of our nation. Lord, that you would hear us.

Oh Lord, that you would turn us aside from this headlong course of destruction. Oh Lord we pray that you would do mighty works, Lord that you would do exceedingly and abundantly above even what we can ask or think this morning. That there would be a great turning, a great revival in Reformation starting in your sanctuary as we read. And Lord that it would overflow and that the land would be changed. Where there is blood shed, Lord, that there would be life springing up.

Lord, we ask you, I pray that you would just give us special help today and encouragement and guidance and Lord that you would just fill us with your spirit. We need you and we ask you to come now in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Will you can please be seated.

The elders asked that I would preach on this subject not because they felt that anyone needed to be persuaded. It wasn't that, that people here are kind of on the fence on this matter of abortion. But as I mentioned, it's really the ethical issue of our time. And what the idea of this sermon really is, is really to put us in mind of the depth or of the sinfulness of this sin that it might change the way we even look at it ourselves even as blood-bought born-again Christians but also not only to see it as it really is but really also to see the role of the church in the day that he's put us in. And so there's no there's no way around it.

This is a difficult subject. We can't really hide behind it. And what is abortion? Abortion, it is the intentional killing of an unborn child. Very, very simple.

And it's a heavy topic and so we have a heavy text as well before us to help us kind of grapple with that. And where we're going to be spending our time here this morning, it's going to be with a man, Ezekiel, a man who was exiled himself and he was a priest from Jerusalem who became a prophet in the land of Babylon. He was actually a contemporary of Daniel and whereas Daniel was sent to the capital, Ezekiel, he prophesied among the exiled Jews along the river Kibar somewhere far distant from the capital itself You know from the from the outset though. I do want to have a word speak a word to those among us who Have participated in this sin the sin of abortion and here you find yourself today are you a Christian? Are you a Christian?

And if so, what you've done is you've exchanged the worship of a false God for the true and the living God. You found out that this wasn't the unforgivable sin. You're a trophy in that sense. And even though you might suffer perhaps from the strongest of all emotions, which is guilt, The Lord wants you to be free. So I want you to remember that here you were one of those who heard the call and you came.

Come now and let us reason together says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and that they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." There was no soap that was strong enough to remove the stain, and so what's happened? God provided something immeasurably stronger, the blood of his own son. And for the rest of the sermon I just want you to remember two words as no doubt your conscience will prick you here and there I want you to remember two words, full and free. Forgiveness, full and free.

All your sin, including this one, as we just sang, was swallowed up in an ocean without bottom or shore. And I just ask you, do you believe that? Do you believe that today? And so one of the great things that we do every Sunday within this very hour the Lord is going to confirm that you are forgiven by inviting you to his table to partake of his supper. And so we have a good God.

You know Betsy Tenboom on her deathbed, she said to her sister Corey, she says, there is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still. God, He can reach down to the uttermost and save. And so today, keep that in mind as we go through these different points. The first thing I want to talk to us about here this morning is what was Ezekiel's mission? What was the mission of this man?

Well, as I mentioned, he was sent as a priest, and then he became a prophet as he was sitting in this refugee camp, so to speak, among these new captives. And his whole task was to help them to make sense of what had happened. Their whole world had been totally upended. You know, Jerusalem was at one point, it was called the city of truth. One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the temple was coated in solid gold.

You could see it from miles around. What list of sins, what could a nation have done that could now render their capital city reduced to a smoldering heap of ruins. What could it have been? And here are these people, they're sitting there in this camp, in this new place, they're totally disoriented, They've been uprooted and carried about 900 miles away from their hometown. Think about it, when Ezra makes his journey back, it took him four months to go back from Babylon all the way to Jerusalem.

And every family had now, by this point, they tasted death. Someone in their family had died or been put to the sword by the Babylonians or some other, even their own countrymen. And now they find themselves homeless, they're jobless, they're rootless, and temple-less. And so the question of the day is why? And there were of course all sorts of opinions that were on the loose.

You know, why had this happened? Well, even according to our text when you look at verse 9, they actually thought that they were victims. Look what they say, the Lord has forsaken the land and the Lord does not see us. This is not a repentant spirit, this is not a group of people that were falling on their face. It's almost as though they're placing the blame on God himself.

What's the use is kind of the idea. And so in all of this, Ezekiel has this threefold mission. What are those three things? One of them was to drive home the reason for their exile, to actually pinpoint their sin. The second part of his mission was to vindicate the holiness, the righteousness of God.

And then the third point was to hold out the possibility of repentance, if they would but here. But of course, God gives Ezekiel his mandate, and this is what he says earlier on in the book, he says, son of man, I am sending you to the children of Israel, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me. And you, son of man, do not be afraid of them nor be afraid of their words, though briars and thorns are with you and you dwell among scorpions. Do not be afraid of their words or dismayed at their looks. He had a tough ministry and these were heavy days and so earlier on in the book Ezekiel he receives this mission, this mandate from God and he goes and he walks among his fellow captives.

And like Job's friends, this is what he says, I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days. This is the state, He didn't even open his mouth for seven days because of the travesty that they found themselves in. So this was Ezekiel's mission. But the second point we're going to be spending most of our time here is looking at things from God's perspective. Why?

Why had judgment fallen to such a degree that the land was emptied, everything thrown down, the city destroyed, the temple leveled? What was the reason for all of this? Well, if you look back, chapter 9 is actually just a flow from chapter 8. The vision actually starts in chapter 8 and comes into chapter 9. And what happens in chapter 8 is that we are transported back to Jerusalem with Ezekiel.

And what happens is Ezekiel is taken up and God says, I want to do something very interesting with you. He takes him beneath the temple and he comes to this wall and God says, dig through the wall. In other words, he's taking him into the secret chambers of where men thought they had escaped God's eye, but God was so very much aware and it was taking place beneath the temple. And so he digs this hole in the wall and then he comes face to face with the sin of Israel. This is what it says in verse 6 of chapter 8.

The Lord asks Ezekiel this question. He says, Son of man, do you see what they are doing? The great abominations that the House of Israel commits here to make me go far away from my sanctuary? And then in chapter nine, what we just read, in verse nine, the Lord gets very specific. Look what he says in verse nine.

He says, the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great. And the land is full of bloodshed and the city full of Perversity he doesn't just say that there's iniquity Going on in this city iniquity is this moral wickedness that is taking place. He doesn't just say that it's great moral wickedness, great iniquity, but he says it is exceedingly great iniquity. And then he describes and he comes right down to it. He says, the land is full of bloodshed.

You see the Lord, he puts his finger on the issue. That word full. It wasn't just, It happened here and there. No, something else was happening here. Innocent blood is being shed.

It's demonically being shed. It's systematically being shed throughout the land. It was now this part of the culture. Every town you would go to would have shrines and altars to the false god Malik. It was permeating the entire culture.

Not too dissimilar from what we find in our day today. And what's so amazing is that directly, even though the people are asking this question, why? Why are we in this state? Why are we 900 miles from home without a temple, without jobs, without a place to live, without anything? The people are asking these questions in this day, but directly before the destruction of Jerusalem.

The weeping prophet, Jeremiah, He takes the elders of the city of Jerusalem on a field trip. He says, come with me. And he takes them outside the walls of Jerusalem. And they go outside the walls of Jerusalem and they go to the Valley of Hinnom, the very site where child sacrifice was taking place. And it's just outside the walls.

Imagine The word Valley of Hinnom, by the way, it makes its way into the New Testament. The Lord Jesus himself uses the word 12 times when he says the word Gehenna, otherwise known as hell. The one who spoke the most of hell in the Bible is Jesus, and the word most frequently used I think is Gehenna. And so here are these elders accompanying Jeremiah as they go outside the gate down into the valley of Hinnom. And this is what the Lord says, they have filled this place with the blood of the innocents to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings to bail which I did not command or speak." And then listen to this, nor did it come into my mind.

How is it possible that the omniscient one, The one who knows the end from the beginning no the one who plans everything there is not a rogue molecule in the entire universe as we've heard and he says This kind of thing never even entered my mind Is it that God didn't know What he's really saying here is that this kind of activity is so foreign, I know man has fallen. But this is beyond that. This is so beyond the pale that it could spawn from nowhere else than from the the pit of hell. And so this is what was happening. Men and women would go outside of the gates of Jerusalem, the holy city, and there they would kill their own children, daughters and sons, on the altars of Baal and Malik.

John Gill says it like this, he says, none but Satan could ever have devised such a way of worship. And so here they found themselves outside. But what I'd like to talk to us today about is again the sin of blood guiltiness. And not because anyone here again needs to be persuaded that abortion is evil or anything like that, But to really grasp and wonder at how God sees it, the nature of God and this sin, how are they related? Let's see these things in more depth.

You know, it is such now a part of our culture as well, isn't it? And everything has been done to lull us to sleep, to kind of take the edge off. They use all sorts of vocabulary that masks the depravity of the sin. You know, it's not abortion, it's reproductive health. People have abortions in clinics, clinics.

The people who do the abortions are doctors. You see how they just take the vocabulary. The people who go in for abortions are patients. This is how the church has fallen asleep. I was talking to Scott earlier this week and we were talking about this this issue and he was telling me how in 1973, right before Roe V.

Wade came into being, that the Protestant church just had no theology really around this whole idea of the moment of conception that becomes a new person, a being in a sense, that the church kind of was asleep. It was the Catholic Church actually that has been fighting the fight probably much much longer against this evil. And so now the church is playing catch-up largely, trying to catch up, but the Lord is good and the Lord is able to do all sorts of things beyond what we could ask or think. And so what does God think about blood guiltiness? What does God think about this matter of shedding innocent blood?

Well, if we go right back to the very first book of the Bible, in Genesis chapter 4, we find Abel, who is the very first victim of murder. And Cain was told by God, The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the ground. This is where the very first concept of blood guiltiness, you see in Hebrews we find that Abel being dead yet speaks. And part of that is his example speaks, but also the idea, the concept that this man's blood cries out for vindication as well. The principle is very simple, that blood unjustly shed will always cry for vengeance.

This is the principle that God was laying down. And then you just fast forward, not too far, maybe 1200 years, 1300, 1500 years, and we come to the time of Noah. And here was a man in the sea of wickedness really it talks about the fact that violence had become such just a part of this culture that God says I'm going to scrap the whole thing and start over and this was hundreds of years by the way before Sinai before God even laid down any of the commandments that we have there, not that they didn't exist but that before they were actually inscribed and engraved in those tablets. And God tells him, he says, whoever sheds man's blood, This is right after, so in the new creation, the ark is now settled on the mountains of Ararat. He offers the sacrifice.

It's a new world and the very first thing what does God say? Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. And then he lays down this principle, for in the image of God he made him. And that's really the principle. What makes murder so wrong, it is a sin against the person, but it's a sin against the image of God in that person.

And the image of God is what distinguishes man from everything else in creation. That's what makes man so unique, so wonderful, is every single one of us bear the image of God, the stamp of God, so to speak. But fast forward even a little bit further and you find the children of Israel and they are on the threshold of entering the promised land. It's in Deuteronomy chapter 21, and this is a real startling verse. It seems so unnecessary, so overdone.

Would God like go to this length to make sure that righteousness is upheld? Well, right before they go into the land, Moses sheds light on the fact that even an unsolved murder is not to be taken lightly. This is probably to me one of the most revealing things about the nature of God. So the context is this, is that a body is just mysteriously found in a field somewhere. No one knows who did the crime and what what's to take place?

Well you go from the body wherever it was and then you measure to the nearest town to see which town is nearest. This one's four miles, that's four and a half miles, that's six miles, that kind of thing. And whichever is closest, the elders of that town need to sacrifice a heifer, break its neck and offer this sacrifice. And then they're followed by the priests of Levi, who are also inhabitants of that town, and this is what those priests are to say. Then they shall answer and say, our hands have not shed this blood, nor have our eyes seen it.

Provide atonement, O Lord, for your people Israel, whom you have redeemed, and do not lay innocent blood to the charge of your people Israel." Do you see that? That's how careful God is. The principle is that the guilt of innocent blood must be atoned for, even if we don't know who actually committed the crime. It must be dealt with, is what God is saying. And so we've seen the days of Abel, right, almost from creation, fast forward to Noah, and now on the brink of entering the promised land.

But even in the days of the king, starting with Solomon himself, they began to worship the gods of other nations, and idolatry became really a key practice in the nation of Israel. And on the back of this, and this is what I want you to really see if you come away with one thing, on the back of idolatry you will find child sacrifice. Where there is no idolatry, you won't find child sacrifice. These are two sins. We thought we were only talking about the sixth commandment that's being breached, you shall not murder, but when you have child sacrifice, you also have a breach of the very first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me.

You see, in a nation where abortion is rife and through and through, you don't just have this idea of people breaking the Sixth Commandment, but preceding that is another commandment that is being broken. And so I really want to drive home today the religious tie between idolatry and child sacrifice. You know what's so interesting? After the exile and you begin to look at all the prophets. You have men like Malachi and others as well.

You don't see them ever mention child sacrifice. Again, that's because idolatry wasn't a problem. They had other problems. But idolatry wasn't one of the problems. In fact, the Pharisees that come out of this milieu of being so careful we will not commit idolatry again.

They actually go so extreme into other areas formulating their own religion, but it was such a spirit within Israel. They knew they were judged for their idolatry and they won't go back to it so you don't see it as a result. Do you ever hear John the Baptist preaching against child sacrifice? You don't when he comes 400 years later. Or the Lord himself?

Because it wasn't something that was a problem at that time in Israel. Why? Because idolatry had been dealt with after the exile. Again, they were still apostate and all these different things, but that wasn't their specific sin. And so it's inexplicable any other way.

A demonic attack on the image of God is the way we should think of this idea of child sacrifice. And notice how the the pro-abortion arguments have changed over the years. When Roe v. Wade was passed, there wasn't anything like ultrasound at that time, and so they were able to get away with arguments. Well, it's just a clump of cells.

You know, they could get away with that. Of course, ultrasound comes on the scene, and then they begin to mask the crime with medical terms and different things like that. Latin, they call it a fetus, which is just a baby before it's born, but the average person makes this distinction in their mind. And then that shifted when all the research comes out on what actually a baby can do and think and feel and all these different things. Then it became a personhood debate.

Well, what is a person? You know, this philosophical debate. The jury's out, we don't quite know what a person is, and so while the jury's still out, we can continue with this practice. And of course, other things like sentience, sentience, this idea, does the child have thoughts, all these different things. And then it's come to the point where a few years ago a few of us went down to preach at the Women's March.

You know what the prevailing thought is? I really don't care. My body, my choice. I am autonomous. I rule my life.

Do you see the first commandment there, being breached? I was in Pittsburgh this week for work and on Thursday I finished my meetings and I'm I was downtown I went for a walk and I just stumbled upon a Planned Parenthood actually just there downtown and I just saw this semicircle drawn outside this building. I'm like, what is that, you know? And so I went out and I stood outside of it for a while just kind of seeing who was coming and going, and I ended up talking to this woman, And at first she was laughing and jovial, trying to make light of the whole matter. And then we started talking about God and the matter of God and how he thinks about it.

And you know what she said? She says, I've had many abortions. And she says, I know it's murder. I know it's, she's not hiding behind any fake terms or anything like that. This is what it really is.

She actually said that I know it's murder. The mask just comes off. This is the reality of what we're dealing with. There's this nuclear physicist, though. These are the hardened hearts of so many.

This man's name is Dr. Winston Duke. Listen to what he has to say. It would seem to be more inhumane to kill an adult chimpanzee than a newborn baby, since the chimpanzee has greater mental awareness. See, right here in North Carolina actually, there's a law, and I'll quote it.

It says, disturbing sea turtle nests, or eggs, is a third degree felony, punishable by up to a $5, 000 fine and or five years in prison. Turtle eggs. More protections afforded to sea turtle eggs. Preborn turtles than preborn humans made in the image of God. In 26 states, it is illegal to separate puppies from their mothers before eight weeks.

Extra care, make sure Those puppies don't suffer. And these are, I'm not saying these aren't important or even necessary, but look how far down man regards man. We have such a diminished view of human life, even in our culture today after, you know, I was trying to make sense of this I don't know if I can but after two centuries of of this philosophy of evolution you know you have these almost like two bookends and so you've been taught and it's in our culture that you've come from nothing. You've evolved from nothing. You know, when I say nothing, meaning a little cell, that's all you are.

And after this life, you're going nowhere. Your cells go away and you don't have a soul because you were just this animal. And so what does it matter what happens in between these two bookends? I wonder if that's part of the thinking that man has, but of course we cannot escape what Ecclesiastes tells us that God has set eternity in the hearts of every man. And so man lives in this conflict constantly.

But notice the connection just idolatry and child sacrifice. Psalm 106 36 to 39. They serve their idols which became a snare to them. They even sacrifice their sons and their daughters to demons and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan. And the land was polluted with blood.

Thus they were defiled by their own works and played the harlot by their own deeds. Why were they sacrificing to these demons? Well, it's always done for the well-being of the parent. You know this this kind of quid pro quo agreement with this false God, hoping somehow to unlock divine power or prosperity. This is kind of the agreement that you make with Malik.

If I do this, the most precious thing, the fruit of my body, made just a little bit lower than the angels, and if I sacrifice this, will you give me this? That's really the arrangement, the negotiation that's taking place. And in our day, we don't bow down literally perhaps to Malik or to some of these other idols, but really the same calculations are made, aren't they? The three main reasons why abortions take place, at least the three reasons given. Not financially prepared, number one.

It's not the right time in life, number two. And then number three, it interferes with my future plans. These are their three reasons. Not too dissimilar really from what happened in those days of Malik. And you get fast forward even to the end of the time of the Kings and we we meet a man by the name of Manasseh.

And this is where the the culmination of child sacrifice takes place. So much so that even his grandson's efforts, if you remember Manasseh's grandson was Josiah. I mean this man, it was one of the greatest reformations that's perhaps ever taken place. He defiles Topheth, which was one of these false gods. He eradicates Malik in every single place.

He has one of the most beautiful times of Passover and worshipping God. But even that could not reverse God's judgment. You say, oh, come on. Second Kings 23, nevertheless the Lord did not turn from the fierceness of his great wrath, with which his anger was aroused against Judah, because of all the provocations with which Manasseh provoked him. After 52 years of his reign, God says, I'm not going to reverse what I planned because of the evil that Manasseh had done.

And so back to our our text here in Ezekiel, the iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great and the land is full of bloodshed. And so here's this terrifying picture. You know, be honest with you, two weeks ago I'm sitting and I'm just doing my regular morning reading. And I've read Ezekiel before, but it's like I've never read this before. And I'm sitting there reading, and I just sit back in my chair and I just said, wow.

The judgment of God, it's a terrifying thing. And we get this picture here. I'll read it again, just part of it. Then he called out in my hearing with a loud voice saying, let those who have charge over the city draw near. These are angelic beings.

This is a vision. Each with a deadly weapon in his hand. And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north. That's where the Babylonian hordes are going to come. Each with his battle axe in hand.

One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's ink horn on his side. They went in and stood beside the bronze altar. And it goes on to talk about how the glory of God had departed. It moved from the mercy seat. Notice that.

God's presence was dwelling on the mercy seat. Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been to the threshold of the temple. It's now at the door. God is saying, I'm gone. I'm leaving this place.

And then what happens is we see that indiscriminately these angels are sent door to door, man and woman, child, maidens, indiscriminately accept, and we'll get to this in a minute, those who have this mark on their forehead. It's a terrifying picture. They're told not to spare. After all of the evil that had been done, God is saying, no more, no more. And so we've seen Ezekiel's mission, why he was sent, And we've hopefully seen things from God's perspective.

I hope that's been communicated. And then we come to the role of the church as our third point here. And I do want to point to us that third, that seventh angel actually, for our third point. And he's got this ink horn, he's clothed in linen. Actually some commentators think this might even be the Lord Jesus himself.

Maybe, maybe not, I'm not sure. But what has happened here is notice what happens is this man with the ink horn is sent out ahead of the angels with the battle axes and he's to go throughout the city and What is his task his mission? He doesn't have a battle axe He has this ink horn on his side and what he's gonna do is go out and mark certain men. Why are these men set apart? Do you see the nature of the men?

It describes them very simply here. Men who sigh and cry. These men they sigh and they cry over all the abominations that are done within it. That means within the city of Jerusalem. Is there, you know, I was thinking to myself, I'm so dry-eyed, honestly.

What causes me to weep? Is there anything that causes you to weep? What is it? Why are these men weeping? Why are they sighing?

Something's gone on in their hearts, and we'll talk about that in a minute, but they're marked in their foreheads with this last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And as widespread as the apostasy was, again, old and young men, maidens and little children, women, there are some few, however few, that are still here, however in the minority, that have not yet bowed the knee to Baal. God has his remnant here and he was going to spare them from judgment. This is what God does. But again, notice the nature of these men.

They're sighing and crying. This is a group of people who are not indifferent. They don't shrug when they hear of the abominations done in the land, but they're brokenhearted. They're experiencing this intense grief. Later on in chapter 24, Ezekiel's wife dies, and it's the same word used to describe the feeling of a man's wife actually dying.

You know, one commentator says this, let us mourn in the time of sinning So shall we be marked in the times of punishing? Let us be among those who feel and have the heart of God for what's going on. All through the Bible we see this, God is able to deliver his people in times of judgment. You know Lot, as much, whatever you think about Lot, Peter tells us more about him than we see in Genesis, how he was vexed or he was agitated because of the evil around him. And God rescues Lot out of Sodom before he destroys it.

Israel was saved, you remember Goshen? While all the plagues are falling on the people of Egypt, there was light in Goshen. God knows how to save His people. One of the most amazing stories is during the time of AD 70 where a church father, Eusebius, he's writing hundreds of years later, but he recounts how the Church of Jerusalem was spared in that time, being divinely warned. Somehow a message got to them, this whole city will be utterly destroyed, and the church was able to escape across and over the Jordan to a city called Pella.

You should read it to your children. It's an amazing account of God's deliverance there in 80s, 70s. He's rescuing his people and then judgment falls to the point where not a stone is left upon another stone in Jerusalem. People are eating their own children, eating shoe leather, whatever they can get a hold of. I mean that's just the level of the destruction that God brings to these people because of their sin.

And so one thing we always have to remember is that the church is ever the conscience of the nation. You are the salt of the earth. That's what the Lord wants you to see. You have a role that's so important as the people of God. And your role is to be among those who sigh and cry and then take action as a result of that.

You see, these men are men that are zealous for the promotion of the glory of God. They want God's glory in the earth. They want to see that. And I want to introduce you to a man who had that feeling fighting much, a very similar battle. His name was William Wilberforce.

And you've, of course, many of you, even you children have heard of this man, and he lived a profligate life for a while. Grew up in a godly home. He was acquainted with men like Whitfield, John Newton, I mean mountains. But as he got a little older, he ran and became a member of Parliament there in Britain. And he talks about, if you read his biography, he talks about how his friends pulled him away, pulled him away to the point where all his former teaching dissipated in the theaters and balls and gambling and games and things like that.

But something happened at the age of 28. He calls it the great change. Has that happened to you? He's 28 years old and something happens. His life is changed.

And now he's a Christian and he's there as a Christian born again and he's deciding I can't continue in this world as a member of Parliament these balls and all these people and all this corruption all around me and so he goes and seeks counsel from a man by this time an old man John Newton and John Newton gives him good advice. He says, it is hoped and believed that the Lord has raised you up for the good of his church and for the good of the nation. And so he recommends, yes Wilberforce, there you are, a member of parliament in the House of Commons, a corrupt cesspool. Stay. Stay and work for the good of the church and the good of the nation.

Well, this young man takes the advice. He takes this advice and look what he says. He says this, I must confess equally and boldly that my own solid hopes for the well-being of my country depend not so much on navies and armies nor on the wisdom of her rulers nor on the spirit of the people as on the persuasion that she still contains many who love and obey the gospel of Christ. Does this sound familiar? Those who have the mark, I believe that their prayers may yet prevail.

Do you believe that, that even on this matter of abortion, someone prayed that this morning, that even in our lifetime, that this might be done away with. We can pray to our God to that end. Well, Wilberforce though, this is what I want you to know, he knew something about waging a long war. See, oftentimes we want quick results. We want to use turns of phrase and cute words or things like that as our weapons, but not Wilberforce.

He waged this long war against even longer odds, but he had the help of the living God. You see, the same year that the French Revolution was beginning, in May of 1789, he's now 30 years old. He's been a Christian for about four years, or two years, sorry, and he makes his first speech in the House of Commons. Imagine this young man, he gets up and his whole speech is to abolish the slave trade. You might as well advocate for the destruction of the British economy throughout the world.

And he was laughed at, he was mocked, maligned, ridiculed for bringing God to bear on the matter. He actually spoke about God and his view on the matter just as we're doing on the matter of abortion and one man by the name of Lord Melbourne got up and he says things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade public life keep your religion in your church but don't bring it into the House of Commons. But isn't Jesus Lord of all? All power has been given to me in heaven and earth. See what Wilberforce believed was that very thing.

The thing that allowed him to continue year after year, decade after decade was this one simple belief. He reigns. He is Lord of all, and my job as far as lies within me is to spread his kingdom as far and wide as I can. What a man, what a vision this man had. Well in 1791, two years later after this speech, with the support of his young friend and now the prime minister, this was William Pitt, he brought forth a bill to abolish a slave trade, defeated 163 votes to 88.

What are you gonna do? William Wilberforce in every year between 1789 and 1806, he presented a bill for the abolition of the slave trade every year. In 1807, after a huge campaign, Parliament finally abolished the slave trade. How long is that? From 1789 to 1807.

And so what does William Webber Forrest do? It's time to retire, time to relax, he's got his victory. No. See, the slave trade was abolished, but not slavery itself. There were still slaves in England and throughout all of the colonies.

So while they've decided, okay we're not going to trade slaves anymore, slavery itself was alive and well as it ever was. And I just want to ask, will there be a young man among us with the spirit of William Wilberforce that you care enough for the glory of God and for the welfare of man made in his image, that maybe you might be moved upon. You see Isaiah 62, this is one of my favorite verses, it says, I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem, they shall never hold their peace Day or night you who make mention of the Lord Do not keep silent and give him no rest till he establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth giving God no rest Verses are short-term little sprints to make changes This man said I'm gonna give God no rest. I don't know when God will do it, but I'm gonna do everything I can for this cause." And so he continued. You see, he was aiming at something higher.

He was aiming at something much deeper than just the abolishing of the slave trade. He wanted men made in God's image to be regarded as such and to be free. And so in 1823, older now, he launches a campaign to this end all around the emancipation of slaves. 1823. And then he works for another decade, ten years, and there he is three days before he's going to die.

He's on his deathbed and news comes to him on his bed that the Emancipation Act is passed and all the slaves in the British Dominion will be granted freedom. 44 years, sighing and crying, praying and persuading, conspiring and planning, suffering, crushing defeat, and then getting back up. Again, what sustained him? What will sustain you? It's only the belief that Christ is King and the role of Christ's people is to keep bringing in his kingdom.

That's your role. That's my role. I want to end this section on Wilberforce really with a quote from that speech, that very first speech in 1789 when the young Wilberforce got up in the House of Commons, you get something of his spirit. Never, never will we desist till we extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity looking back to the history of those enlightened times will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country. I wonder if we'll be able to have men who will say the same thing, the dishonor and disgrace of this nation.

May God raise up men who follow in this train. May God, may the Church of God arise. Put her armor on and go out and do it for the long haul. May God move upon our hearts. You see France, it never ever recovered.

I mentioned 1789, It never recovered, did it? From its murderous revolution, vile revolution, which was all a spiritual revolution to get rid of God. But you know England? England did respond and it would prosper. It owned the 19th century.

The 20th century was American, but the 19th century was British. God blessed that nation and they sent out more missionaries than at any other time in Europe's history. They flooded the earth, they flooded the colonies, going from India to the West Indies to Africa with men carrying the gospel of Jesus Christ. God blessed England and even now we're reaping the fruit and seeing the long-tail effect and impact of those early days. And so I believe, this is my belief, that I believe that that God will prevail in this matter of abortion.

And to take some encouragement, you know, after nearly 50 years, just a couple of years ago, Roe v. Wade was overturned. We should take great confidence. I honestly I did not believe that would happen to my shame and on the back of that You've got 13 states now that have a total ban on abortion. That's something to say thank you God.

13. But yet, if you look back just to 2024, last year the latest statistics are that every single month, every month, 98, 900 babies were aborted in America. Each month, January, February, down the line, each month. And so, may God, there's still work to do. There's a battle to be fought.

Well the fourth point I want to end on here is the judgment of God and you know you know I work in this space and some of us are very up on the times and we rightly worry about the threats that are facing our nation. I think there are geopolitical threats. There's the evolution of warfare, getting into electronic warfare and other types of fighting. Illegal aliens are crossing our borders and committing crimes, breaking laws. There's inflation.

You know, there's economic irresponsibility. There's the national debt. And these are all very real problems, not to be diminished. But according to God, according to the word of God, and what we've been going through here this morning, here is the crime of our nation. The greatest threat to our national security may not be the Iranians or the Chinese or some other thing, but it may be the sin that we are drinking down and are still unrepented of as a nation, just as it was for the nation of Israel.

You see, in Romans 15, whatever things were written before time were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. We're supposed to take what's been taught and say, not me, please let us not go this way. Well, as it turns out, God was Israel's greatest national security risk, and he simply used the Babylonians. They were just an instrument. As we saw in Isaiah, they're just an instrument in his hand that can do nothing without God.

And this was the view, by the way, of men like Wilberforce, you know, who saw clearly that flagrant national sin will bring about the judgment of God. Unless it is repented of, it's totally disavowed and put away. That's what these men believed, which was why they they had such a zeal and a long-term view. And so in a real sense though, One of the things to consider is abortion really is, in a sense, its own judgment. You look at a country like China, where because of sex-selective abortion, it's more profitable to have a son than a daughter in their minds.

And so, a wife gets pregnant, she knows she's having a girl, abortion. Do you know today there are 35 million more Chinese men than there are Chinese women? 35 million men that will never have a wife and not have children. It's its own judgment. You go to Europe today, Europe is in what you call a demographic winter.

It's unrecoverable at this point. They're having less than the replacement rate by far, less than half the replacement rate in countries like Italy. It might be the last century unless there's some great revival and great repentance. God is in control, I'm not. But nations that kill their children, they have no one to support them when they're older.

So let's bring in the hordes from other lands. Oops, that's a mistake. It hastens the destruction. It provides an economic disaster, a social disaster. And so in verse 7 of our text today, God gives these instructions to these axemen.

Look what he says. He tells these axemen, defile the temple and fill the courts with the slain. Go out and they went out and killed in the city. You disregarded and lightly esteemed the image of God in man, God will lightly esteem you. And as for me also in verse 10, my eye, this is God speaking, my eye will neither spare nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head." And so the men with the battle axes, notice where they were told to begin their gruesome work.

He says, begin at my sanctuary. This is so interesting. The church, again, is the salt of the earth. It's the preserving influence of the world. That's our task, our whole reason.

And it's such a shame, you know, I was just thinking back over the couple of years. You know, I remember during the 2020 election, I wasn't in the country, but I remember reading online of some of these evangelical leaders here in the U.S. You know, under the guise of trying to get a Democrat into the White House, they chastised the church. Don't be single issue voters, you know. You got to expand your horizon.

Don't just worry about abortion. And they were chastising members of their own churches, but because they have such a platform putting out publicly as well. David Platt said this, he says, yes, abortion is abhorrent. That's clear in the Bible. But is that the only issue at stake in an election?

Come on, expand your view. There's other reasons you can vote for a Democrat. Tim Keller, listen to this. The Bible tells us, knows how he tries to lump everything in, when you lump everything in you can kind of take out the pinprick, you can take out the force of one. And so the Bible tells us that idolatry, abortion, and ignoring the poor are all grievous sins.

But it doesn't tell us exactly how we are to apply these norms to a pluralistic democracy. I know abortion is a sin, but the Bible doesn't tell me the best political policy to decrease or end abortion in this country. We are allowed to debate that, and so are our churches, and they should not have this unity over debatable political differences. Reduced to not a big deal. Let's not divide over it.

Let's not let it be a big issue. Of course, fast forward just a few years to the last election cycle and the Democratic Party has a food truck converted into an abortion clinic parked outside the DNC. See, unmasked. They don't care. They actually love and celebrate this as one of their sacraments.

And so, brothers and sisters, just by way of conclusion, I just want to end with a couple of thoughts here. I want to just ask us here this morning to agree with Wilberforce that Christ is King. And the role of Christ's people is to keep bringing in his kingdom. I also just want to alert us to something you probably already know. If you've been out to the abortion mill, you know this very, very well.

That we are in a war with a pagan religion. This is not flesh and blood. Make no mistake, it's a spiritual war and so it's going to be fought with spiritual weapons primarily. And I just wanna Admonish us and exhort us to be among those who sigh and cry. That means mobilize or run for office or keep doing what you're doing.

Those that are going down each Saturday, you're not doing it in vain. It's a good and a worthy calling that you're embarking on. Take encouragement. Prayer, prayer is so important as well. And then again, I just want to imagine this idea of a young man being infected with that spirit of Wilberforce that says, you know, by the help of God, I'm gonna orient my life around seeing abortion eradicated in North Carolina.

Could that be? God knows. And I just want to end with this last point that if our nation is preserved, it will be because the nation turns from this abomination. But how will they hear without a preacher? So preach the Word, bring it to bear, and may God receive the glory.

When we look back like Wilberforce was able to look back and say it's finished, this particular sin is now no longer a stain on our nation. Let's pray. Oh Lord, You know, and we come to You here, asking You to undertake, Lord, to steal our spine, to Give us energy, give us strength for the task at hand. Lord, I pray that you would please move again upon this nation. Lord, make us among those that sigh and cry for all the abominations that are done here.

Remove from us, Lord, the spirit of indifference. Awaken us, oh Lord, and give us that spirit that you gave to your servant William Wilberforce those 200 years ago. Lord, I pray that there would be just such emotion in our hearts and a change of view to say why not me. Lord I pray that you would just do mighty works and that you alone would receive all the praise, that you would receive all the glory that is due to your name oh Lord and that you would spare this nation yet, just as you spared England. Lord, spare us by granting repentance.

We ask these things, Lord, in Jesus' name, amen. Amen.