The Fight for Life
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(The Fight for Life is a transcript of a sermon preached by Kevin Cauley to the New Boston Church of Christ on June 26th, 2022 the Sunday after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe vs. Wade. Minor corrections have been made to clarify and improve grammar.)
I guess I was in high school at the time when on a Sunday evening, I believe, a group of men came to the young people and said we want you to come watch a video. This is important. They gathered all the high-school kids together, and they brought us into one of the rooms in the building in Austin Texas, and they set up a VCR. In that day we all had big tapes, and they plugged in this VCR, and we started watching a video about abortion. They warned us. They said this is very graphic. What you’re about to see is something that has never been seen before.
The technology to see inside of the womb was still very new. The ultrasound technology was developed to help understand pregnancy and the processes that took place during pregnancy so that a pregnancy can be monitored and people can do things to help their unborn children to survive. There are many problems with that process, and it can be difficult to go through, so the ultrasound technology was new, but it has been used very effectively to help young women give birth to the children.
This particular video had an ultrasound of an abortion, and we all sat down in this room together. We started watching this video, and they said this is graphic. We sat there nonetheless, and they show the ultrasound. There was a baby; it was clearly a child in the womb, and then they began to do the abortion. Without going into the horrific details—the brutal detail—that took place, at the end of that video there was no longer a child, and that empty womb was one of the most disturbing things that I ever saw as a young man.
At that moment, I knew exactly what that was. There was no doubt in my mind. That was murder of an innocent child. It was clear. It was obvious. It did not need interpretation. You did not need the different arguments that were being made for and against abortion. Just seeing it, you could tell that this should not be done. If you have never actually seen that happen, go watch it. I’m sure you can see it on the Internet somewhere. Go watch it, and you will know afterward what is really going on.
Of course, [showing this video] happened in the church. The video was shown in response to the 1972 Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade, wherein the Supreme Court said we don’t care what everyone else out there thinks about this. We are now going to legislate that anybody in this country can do this at any time that they want. Of course, it had been illegal in all the states before 1972 to have an abortion because people knew what that was. They understood what happened when that took place. They knew it was wrong. Nonetheless, the courts decided that it was no longer going to be in the hands of the people to decide that matter, but it was going to be deemed “a right,” and so, when the Supreme Court, this past Friday, overturned and reversed the monumental error that was Roe vs. Wade, I was excited about that. I was happy about that.
How many millions of babies have been sacrificed in this country over the past 50 years in the name of sin? And that is exactly what is behind this issue—sin. Don’t misunderstand! It’s the desire to sin, to have sin, to think that one is not guilty of sin, and to remove the consequences of sin that largely (and I say largely because there are some rare cases where there is a conflict between the mother’s life and the baby’s life, and it has to be resolved) due to sin. It is the sin of wanting to have pleasure, and not deal with the consequences of that desire.
But you know, as I was thinking about that decision, I was excited, I was happy, I was joyful, that now, we the people could have a voice in that matter again, and unfortunately, abortion is still legal in many states in this country, but there are several states where there were laws that said as soon as the court reversed its decision, it’s going to be illegal in our state, and thankfully, Texas was one of them.
We think about the word of God. You know, God is a God of life. We were talking about that in our Bible study this morning and thinking about how God gave the Ten Commandments. They were designed so that the people might have life. You look at Deuteronomy chapter thirty, for example, God says I’ve given you, I’ve set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants. Choose life! Those are God’s words. He wants us to choose life, and life in the word of God depends upon our listening to God and being obedient to His will. That’s what life depends on. And if anybody has life today, it’s going to be because God grants them that life, and I’m thankful for that. And we need to be a people who support and uphold life. We want life. Jesus said in John 10:10, “I am come that they might have life, and they might have it more abundantly.”
The Battle for Truth
But in thinking about this decision, I was thinking (and there were several things going on, different people making comments one way or another), and I got to thinking, you know, the battle is about truth. We were talking about this in class this morning. If it’s just my opinion versus your opinion then it doesn’t matter what is legislated in the halls of Congress. It doesn’t matter what the Supreme Court decides one way or another, if it’s just my opinion versus your opinion. But you see it’s not just my opinion versus your opinion. That [philosophy] is what, in this country, is characterized as “the left.” That is what they want us to believe: that there are no moral absolutes. It’s just my opinion versus your opinion, or one country’s opinion versus another country’s opinion, or our values versus your values, as they sometimes put it. It’s not just human versus human. That’s not the ultimate conflict. The conflict is with God. God has a controversy with the people. That has always been the case, and that will continue to be the case, and that is because of His great love for us.
Jesus said in John 8:32, “and you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” The Bible is setting forth God’s truth. God’s absolute truth, not my opinion versus your opinion, not just God’s opinion versus other people’s opinion. It’s God’s truth, and truth is absolute; truth is truth, whether I like it or I don’t like it, and that’s the battle. That’s the real battle. It’s about truth.
In the 1960s, (and this is before many people here were born; some people are still here who were alive in the 1960s. I was born in 1968)—In the 1960s, there were many Supreme Court decisions that changed society. They brought things that were normally done in private and dealt with it in public, and that put a focus on areas of life that were not publicly discussed before that. So, the church then needed to wade into this territory by teaching what the word of God said about these matters, and some of them were very uncomfortable.
You know that God’s word is truth (John 17:17), and because God’s word is truth, God has something to say about our lives and how we should live them. Turn over, for example, to Ephesians 6. Because God’s word is truth, we are in a fight. If you believe in God and you believe in the Bible, then you should understand that we are to fight a fight for truth today. It’s not a physical war. Although there are some who take it to that level, and that’s not right. Listen to what the apostle Paul says here in Ephesians chapter six about this big fight that we are in. He says:
Finally, my brothers, be strong in the Lord” (this is verse ten) “and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
What is Paul telling us here? He is saying that there is a great warfare going on. This is not a carnal warfare, as he says in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. We talk about it; we don’t fight a carnal warfare. We don’t battle things in a way that is physical in nature. Instead, we have a spiritual war. Second Corinthians chapter 10. Look at the first few verses of that chapter. He says, (this is verse three):
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.
Why do we talk about these things? Because if the battle is going to be won, it’s not going to be at the tip of a spear, at the end of the sword. It’s going to be in the hearts and the minds of people. That’s where the battle is, and that’s where we need to be. Truth is on the line.
There is this element in today’s culture that is dead set against truth. “There is no truth,” they say, and the results of that kind of thinking, that kind of mentality, that there is no truth—we are reaping those consequences in our society today. Little boys and little girls are being told, “You’re not a boy; you’re not a girl; you’re whatever you decide to be.” That is a lie, a flat-out lie. But that segment of our culture does not believe that there is anything that is a lie because [they believe that] there’s no truth. If there’s no truth, there can’t be right and wrong, truth and error. There can’t be falsehoods and right statements. There can only be what you want, and that is a recipe for disaster, and so, you can be whatever you want.
This results in some strange headlines today: “Woman in love with fence.” Anybody see this? It was an actual headline. In the news there was a woman who fell in love with a picket fence. Don’t ask me to go into the details, but the article was not talking about somebody who built a picket fence and then said, “I love this. It’s such a beautiful fence.” It’s not like that. It’s not that kind of love, but the other. I’m just flabbergasted. There’s a guy in Japan who fell in love with a fictional character, and there was a headline about that man in Japan having communication issues with his fictional spouse. You think?! Why?! Why is this happening? We have abandoned truth. We’ve got to teach truth. We’ve got to teach the Bible. We’ve got to fight for what’s right. We’ve got to get into the spiritual warfare and start taking up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, Paul says in Ephesians 6. These are concepts that God has taught us that we can communicate to other people. Truth is powerful. It will do the job if we let it.
We need to be teaching the truth, and yes, there are some images going around about how “Well, now, (you know), the church will be having their say in the schools.” You know, stuff like that. Well, if the church doesn’t have its say in the schools, then who will have a say in the schools. Other people, right? Somebody is going to have their say in the schools. Somebody is going to have their say in the law. Somebody is going to have their say in the Supreme Court. Somebody is going to have their say in society and how it goes. Why shouldn’t it be God Who has His say in those things? Why not? It’s better than the alternative.
Look at the miserable record that mankind has in the past 200 years of doing things without God. Look at Napoleon and the wars that he fought in the name of atheism. Look at the French Revolution. How many millions of people were put to death? Look at Stalin and what he did in Russia when he put to death tens of millions of people; some say hundreds of millions of people. The atheists in the left say, “well, religion is responsible for all these deaths [in history].” That was nothing in comparison to what atheism does.
Somebody’s going to have their say one way or the other. It might as well be God, and we have got to stand up for that. We have got to do what’s right in our culture, our schools, in our society, in the church—in all those areas—and it’s a big battle. There’s a lot of complicated things. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying to simplify this in any way, but if we don’t fight the fight, we will lose for lack of having tried.
Fifty years of battle over this one issue. And finally, we can say there is some success. 50 years is a long time. Some people don’t even live that long. We need to have patience. We need to have perseverance. We need to go forward. We need to fight the battle of truth that the Bible is setting before us, not just my opinion versus your opinion but what is right versus what is wrong. There are things that are right because they are right and things that are wrong because they are wrong, and when it comes to things that are right, the Bible tells us what is right.
The Need for Personal Responsibility
The Bible has some things to say about the motives behind the attitudes involved from those who would seek to perpetrate abortion in our country. Look at First Thessalonians chapter four. Think about this for a minute. Let’s think about this, because, as we said, the battle is in the hearts and minds of people. And it starts with my heart and starts with your heart. Okay. It’s got to begin there. We have got to get our hearts right first, and then, we can start talking to other people. But look at what God has to say about what is behind abortion. It is largely the sin of fornication. There’s more to it. There’s a lot more to it, but that’s how the Bible frames it. Look at chapter four verse three:
For this is the will of God, your sanctification that you should abstain from sexual immorality (or fornication) that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God, that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore, he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us his Holy Spirit.
Fornication, to put it succinctly—that was what all the changes in the 1960s were about—fornication, enabling people to commit fornication in all the different ways that they wanted to commit fornication, and the courts were successful in doing that, very successful, and they continued to be successful over the past 50+ years.
The Bible hasn’t changed. Fornication is a sin. What’s the problem? The problem isn’t the law. The problem is me. It’s what happens inside me, my desires that are out of control. There’s a loss of control when I don’t respect what God has said about marriage. I start creating babies outside of marriage where there’s no father figure. The research shows that fathers are desperately needed for children to be reared in a way that is going be healthy and productive. When there is no father figure, you are setting people back from the get-go. Children need fathers, but the fornication culture does not want that. That is what they’re seeking to eliminate.
They want to eliminate the family from society. You say, “Surely that’s not the case.” Yes, it is. Stalin tried to do it in Soviet Russia. He tried to get all the children and send them to education camps. He took them out of the hands of the parents. It did not work. That is what the left wants in this country. Ultimately, they want to control the minds of the children to indoctrinate them and to teach them in their ways, in their thinking, in what they want and they desire so that they can do whatever it is that they want to do without consequences.
But the problem is that there are consequences. There are consequences to committing fornication. There are consequences to being a homosexual. There are consequences to radically altering a young boy or girl’s physiology for the sake of them thinking, “I want a ‘cookie’.” You know, you don’t do that to kids. They should not think like that. You push back on them. You say, “No, you can’t have this.” Why? Because it’s wrong. It’s irresponsible. That’s not how we should be handling things. So, we got to uphold the truth. We got to teach personal responsibility.
Next week, I’m going to camp, and the week is about the book of Daniel. My assignment is Daniel chapter one. Maybe you remember Daniel chapter one where Daniel and his friends are brought into captivity in the land of Babylon, and they are told, “You’re going to eat these items,” and they say “You know, well, we can’t eat that. God has prohibited us from eating those things.” They said “Well, you do it anyway,” and Daniel and his friends say, “Wait a minute. Give us give us a chance. Let us eat a diet that we put together, and if at the end of a couple weeks, our diet is not productive to getting what you desire, then we will eat what you want.” So, the steward says, “Okay, I’ll give you two weeks, and that’s it.” So, they eat a diet different from what the king prescribed, and they are actually in better shape than those who ate the king’s diet.
What is the lesson there? What is that all about? It’s about personal responsibility. You see, I can’t control what other people do to me, but I can control me. I can control what I do to me. I can control what I put into my body. I can control what I eat, and that’s where it starts. If I can control me, then it begins there, and that’s the whole point. Those who are wanting to do these things (fornication, abortion) don’t want a person to have any self-control. We have lost that virtue in our society today—the virtue of self-control—because we have chosen to forget that there is truth and that I’m responsible for my behavior.
The Role of the Church
Finally, this morning, I want to talk about the role of the church a little bit. Paul said in 1 Timothy 3:15 that he is writing to Timothy, hoping to come to him shortly. But if he was delayed. He said this, I’m writing to you that if I’m delayed that you may know how men ought to behave themselves “in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar in the ground of the truth.” We as the church have been preaching on this issue, and in some cases, we’ve had even our own brothers opposing us and saying things like, “Don’t say such things. It is so bad here that we don’t want you to talk about that. People are sensitive to that.” I know. I know they are sensitive to it. That’s the whole point. They are sensitive to it because they’re offended that the Bible is calling out their sin. That’s why people are sensitive about things, and the culture of sensitivity says to never tell someone that they’re wrong about something. Jesus told plenty of people they were wrong about things. Now, you have to do it in the right way. Don’t misunderstand me.
Jesus said in Revelation chapter three [3:19] to the church at Laodicea, “as many as I love I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous therefore, and repent.” See, God wants us to repent. That’s why He teaches us. That’s what He tells us. That’s why He gives us His word. He’s telling us the truth so that we can change. He knows there’s a problem, and He wants to resolve this problem. The problem is between me and God, between you and God, and until we give ourselves to God, that problem is going to remain, but the church must stand up for what is right. The church must stand up in a loving way. The church must stand up and preach the truth and teach the truth about these things. We have a responsibility as the church to be a pillar and ground of the truth, and largely it is the church that has won this battle because every single other organization in the culture is silent on this issue and has been silent on other issues also—other issues that we’re going to have to fight and battle for in this country.
Now this is a great victory, and we should be thankful to God that this victory took place, and that once again, the issue is now before us, and in our hands as a people. Some were saying that democracy is done. No! Democracy has been enabled through this decision. Why? Because it is back in the hands of the people where it belongs, instead of in the hands of the courts. That’s good. That’s a good thing, but look, that means we’re now responsible. We are responsible to do something and to continue the fight in the other areas where the fight needs to be pressed even today in a loving way, in a kind way, but in a firm way and unrelenting way, the same way that the ocean beats upon the rock year after year after year, and slowly and steadily wears it away. That’s the kind of fortitude that God wants us to have. That’s why the church is the pillar and ground of the truth. She is there to stand throughout time, and we are the church, and so, if we don’t hold to the truth, there is just not going to be any help.
So [first], let’s resolve that there is truth, there is right and wrong. Secondly, that we are responsible individually as people to do what is right within our life first. And then third that as the church we’re going to support and uphold and defend the truth always, and may God help us to do that very thing.
Let’s pray. Dear heavenly Father, we are so thankful for Your great power and might and awesomeness and that You have shown us your power through the message of the gospel, and that the gospel today is Your power for salvation. Thank You so much, Father, for the great blessing of the gospel and thank You Father that in the hearts and minds of people, the battle over abortion is winning. We know that there’s a lot of work left to do and that it is still up to us as individuals to make choices and to do good things and to say right things. We pray Father that You help us resolve to do that and work to forward your agenda of life in this world. Father we’re grateful that this horrible Supreme Court decision that has held sway in our land for over almost 50 years has been undone, has been reversed. We’re thankful Father that now we have a choice in the matter. We can vote on the matter, and we can let people know that regardless of what they may do that here in our community, we are not going to let such things pass because we know Father that Your will is truth. We know Father that Your word is righteous and that Your word brings true justice. We pray Father that You help us to uphold that holy word in this world in which we live. Father, we ask your blessing on all of those who need help at this time. We pray that You would let us into their lives, into their hearts, that we can show them the way of the gospel, that they may come to know your Son, Jesus, and it may change their lives for the good. Thank You for Jesus. Thank You for His paying the price, Father, for our sins, and even for the sin of abortion that those who have even done that can have forgiveness and hope and can change their lives so that they can live for you. We pray Father that that message would get across to many, many people, in Jesus name, Amen.
This morning we been talking about matters of truth and righteousness, and of course, as we mentioned, the gospel is God’s power for salvation today, and there may be someone in this audience this morning who is thinking “You know, I need to be a Christian. I need to obey the gospel. I need to get myself into that spiritual soldier formation and fight that battle along with God’s people, the church today.” If you need to do that this morning, we will be happy to help you with it, and hearing God’s word, loving it, repenting of your sin, confessing Jesus as Christ, and being baptized to identify with Him, you can have a new life. You can have all your sins washed away no matter what they are and go forward in lockstep with the army of God’s people as we fight these battles in our culture today. So, if you would like to respond to the Lord’s invitation this morning to join His army to fight alongside those who are standing up for truth, we invite you to come right now and do so while together we stand and sing.