Good morning brothers and sisters, it’s good to be here with you, gathered together as Third Avenue Baptist Church. This is a time in our service when we normally bow our heads and pray together about matters that are going on in the life of the church and matters going on in the nation and around the world. And we’re going to do that in just a second. Before I pray, though, I want to take a moment to make some remarks about the extraordinary happenings in our nation over the last few days. On Friday morning at 10:10am, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a ruling that overturned its 1973 decision in Roe vs. Wade, which legalized abortion-on-demand across all fifty states of the United States of America. Brothers and sisters, I want to leave no doubt: The death of Roe vs. Wade is something to rejoice over and to praise God for! It is a good, good thing.
You know, in 12 years as the senior pastor here at Third Avenue, I’ve only made remarks like this two other times—in 2014 when the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, and on March 15, 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to suspend our gatherings as a church. Both of those, it goes without saying, were very bad things. So I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be pausing our service this morning to make some remarks about something that fills my heart with joy. The Roe v. Wade decision came down from the Supreme Court on January 22, 1973. Well, 49 years, 5 months, 2 days, and 63 million babies later, on 6-24-22, that decision was overturned. And we praise God for that this morning! My prayer is that 6/24 will burn itself into the heart of our nation as deeply as any other date in our history; it is, without doubt, one of the greatest and most important and best days in the entire history of our country. Praise God! As we celebrate, I want to make a few points to you as your pastor, things to think about as we move forward into this post-Roe era:
1. This overturning of Roe v Wade is an unmitigated good, and we as Christians should celebrate it without apology and without shame. Now don’t get me wrong. Obviously this decision doesn’t result in an unmitigatedly good world. Of course there is still suffering and heartache and difficulty, precisely because this is a fallen world. But even if you have questions and concerns about what the future holds, it is a good thing, worthy of celebration, that on Friday our nation took an unmitigatedly positive step toward aligning our laws with what is good and beautiful and true. So let’s celebrate and praise God for what’s happened. Listen, friends, it is GOOD that our nation’s laws no longer treat abortion as an unquestioned good thing, and it is even BETTER that the laws of our State of Kentucky now treat abortion as a thing evil and undesirable. That’s because the fact is, the law speaks. It always speaks, and it always teaches. As an agent of God himself for the restraint of evil and the furtherance of good, the government will always have a hand in teaching society what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is evil, and now, for the first time in 50 years, the laws of our nation and the laws of Kentucky have at least stopped speaking falsehoods about the true nature of abortion. It is evil, and we, at least here in Kentucky, are now able to acknowledge that by law. That is something, unquestionably, to celebrate, and I don’t think I’m wrong in thinking that some of your gusto in singing this morning was exactly for that reason!
2. It is just simply imperative that we pause to thank God for answering the prayers of his people. Just about every Sunday evening, in my prayer at the end, I thank God for hearing the prayers of his children and for answering his children when they pray. Well, for 49 years, 5 months, and 2 days, tens of thousands of churches and millions of Christians across this country have been praying for this past Friday to come. They prayed for an end to Roe v. Wade. They prayed for the opportunity—just the opportunity—to engage the democratic process, to persuade their fellow citizens of the evil of abortion. And on Friday, finally, God answered their prayers. He wasn’t fast about it. But he did it. You’ll hear more, a lot more, about this in today’s sermon, but it’s worth saying it now too: God answers the prayers of his children, and we ought to worship him because of it!
3. It is just right to take a moment to say “thank you” to, and to praise God for, those of you who have given your lives to fighting the culture of death that has prevailed in this nation since 1973. I don’t know if any of them are here, but there are people who were alive on January 22, 1973, and who saw that decision come down and said “Yea, I’m giving my life to this,” and they have, for 50 years. If that’s you, brother or sister, thank God for you! Thank God for the work you’ve done, and thank God for this new dawn of hope that you absolutely must be seeing and feeling today. God has done this thing, but he’s done it especially in response to your prayers and through your work. Thank you.
Some of you haven’t been doing that work for 50 years, but you have been doing it. Thank you to you, too. Thank you for the work you’ve done with BSideU for Life. Thank you for the work you’ve done at various Crisis Pregnancy Centers here in Louisville. Thank you for the Saturdays that many of you have spent with Speak For the Unborn down at the EMW Abortion Clinic, doing sidewalk counseling. For those of you who have done that, especially, I hope you had the opportunity to go down yesterday and just enjoy the SILENCE…the God-given, God-glorifying silence of that clinic. Praise God, nothing was happening there! You—all of you—have done good, good work, and the Lord has blessed it. Thank you.
4. And yet, as many have noted, the work of the pro-life movement is really just beginning right now. Friday wasn’t so much the finish line as the starting gun of the pro-life movement. If you think about it, the last 50 years have pretty much just been a struggle for the bare right to have this fight in the first place—the right to engage the legislative process, the right to engage and persuade our fellow citizens of the evil of abortion and of the truth of the statement that life begins at conception and that every life is a person made in the Image of God. That’s the fight we get to engage now, state by state, heart by heart, starting tomorrow morning. Look, it’s fine and good to take a weekend to celebrate, do that! But The Pro-Life Movement Phase 2 begins tomorrow—and it’s the fight to make abortion both illegal and unthinkable across this nation! Brothers and sisters, don’t grow weary in doing good. There’s much left to be done. Our work has only just begun. Speaking of which….
5. We as Christians need to recognize that, particularly in our State, where abortion is now illegal, this decision has left a certain number of women in dire need of help and love. We always knew that was going to be inevitable if Roe v Wade was going to fall. After all, our whole hope is that the end of Roe v Wade will save thousands of babies’ lives precisely because it will make abortion less available. And if that’s the case, then we need to acknowledge the reality that a number of those saved babies are going to be born to mothers who otherwise would have aborted them if they had the chance. And now those mothers need our help, our assistance, our love. And ultimately, they need Jesus. They need Jesus to save them, to forgive them, to welcome them into his family and kingdom. // Look, I’m not naïve. I’m not going to stand up here and pretend that every abortion is had by women who are broken and in-crisis and at the end of their rope. That’s simply not true. A huge percentage of abortions in this country are committed in cold-hearted callousness for the mere, bare sake of convenience. You don’t have to spend long reading the news to realize that. But not all of them are done for that reason. There are in fact broken women who have abortions. There are women in dire crisis who think they have no other choice but abortion. But ultimately, our love and care for women doesn't depend on their motives. Insofar as Kentucky’s new laws now blessedly prevent people from getting abortions, regardless of the reason, we as Christians should first hit our knees to praise God for that, and then stand up ready and enthusiastic to offer assistance and help and love. // Listen, that doesn’t mean I’m saying that you have to vote for certain policies over others; that’d be a silly thing to say; the fact is, there are real and legitimate debates about how society can and should best care for its own. But what I am saying is that right now is the time to double-down on all our talk and all our actions when it comes to caring for mothers, adopting babies, and providing for those in need. Before Friday, all that rhetoric and all those actions mattered; they mattered a lot; but now, they matter even more. So let’s get to it! How do you do that? It’s really not that hard: There are plenty of organizations in Louisville who are committed to doing that work—BsideU for Life, Sunrise Children’s Services, St. Joseph’s Children’s Home. Look them up, call them, email them, and let’s roll.
Brothers and sisters, thanks and praise be to God, Molech took a hard hit in the United States of America this past Friday—a hard, hard hit. And praise God he did! But the work’s not over. Let’s celebrate; let’s thank God for answering our prayers; and then let’s, as the Bible puts it, gird up our loins and get ready for the next phase of the journey! Heaven is not here yet, but it’s coming.