The Strong Murder the Weak Every Day in America
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00:00:02.000 | Every day in America, the strong murder the weak, and it's legal.
00:00:10.540 | It's legal for the strong to murder the weak in America because Americans have grabbed for a godlike power
00:00:17.780 | to determine what is real and what is not real, who is human and who is subhuman.
00:00:25.000 | This is a profoundly important point made by Pastor John in his latest Sanctity of Human Life Sunday sermon and
00:00:31.280 | in a clip recently sent to us by a listener to this podcast. Here's Pastor John to explain.
00:00:37.320 | Abortions come from self-deification.
00:00:41.520 | Deification, what in the world is that? To deify something is to
00:00:48.840 | treat it as God.
00:00:53.240 | Deification is to act as though you're God.
00:00:56.960 | I can hear
00:01:00.200 | someone say, "Oh, here it comes, some
00:01:03.240 | over-the-top,
00:01:05.720 | overstated,
00:01:06.840 | fevered, rhetorical, sermonic flourish about our becoming gods."
00:01:11.080 | If we're pro-choice,
00:01:15.920 | you listen and judge if it's fevered.
00:01:23.440 | In
00:01:25.440 | 1992, in the case of Planned Parenthood versus Casey,
00:01:30.800 | the Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy
00:01:34.960 | spoke a sentence,
00:01:37.680 | one of the most important sentences uttered in the last 50 years,
00:01:41.520 | for echoing and shaping our culture. He said,
00:01:48.280 | "At the heart of liberty,
00:01:52.200 | is the right
00:01:54.200 | to define one's own concept of existence,
00:01:58.280 | of
00:02:00.120 | meaning of the universe and of the mystery of human life."
00:02:06.360 | That's breathtaking.
00:02:10.160 | Here's one of the outworkings of that
00:02:13.600 | self-deifying worldview.
00:02:17.720 | Minnesota,
00:02:21.720 | along with 37 other states,
00:02:23.720 | have fetal homicide laws.
00:02:27.840 | You know what that is?
00:02:30.360 | Laws about how you can treat a baby in the womb. You can read these just like I did. Just go to
00:02:37.360 | Google and type in Minnesota Statutes
00:02:39.920 | 609-2661 following. These statutes
00:02:45.240 | distinguish first degree murder, second degree murder, third degree murder, manslaughter, and assault, all of them relating to the unborn.
00:02:53.240 | For example,
00:02:55.640 | Statute 609.2661 says,
00:02:58.440 | "Whoever does any of the following is guilty of murder of an unborn child
00:03:05.000 | in the first degree and must be sentenced to imprisonment for life."
00:03:10.680 | One,
00:03:14.000 | "Causes the death of an unborn child
00:03:16.760 | with premeditation and with intent to affect the death of the unborn child or of another."
00:03:24.160 | To which you all respond, "That's the definition of abortion."
00:03:28.840 | "Causes the death of an unborn child with premeditation and with the intent to affect the death of the unborn child."
00:03:40.600 | So why doesn't that rule out abortion? It's there in the law.
00:03:45.520 | Simple.
00:03:49.760 | 609.2661 gives some definitions.
00:03:52.640 | A,
00:03:55.520 | "Unborn child means the unborn offspring of
00:03:59.120 | a human being
00:04:01.920 | conceived but not yet born."
00:04:04.000 | Amen.
00:04:07.080 | That's good.
00:04:09.440 | B,
00:04:11.440 | "Whoever," I can define whoever, "Whoever does not include the pregnant woman."
00:04:19.160 | So in the sentence, "Whoever causes the death of an unborn child
00:04:25.280 | with premeditation
00:04:28.720 | doesn't include the mom."
00:04:31.680 | And then goes right to the chase in 609.269,
00:04:38.400 | "All these sections protecting the unborn child
00:04:42.080 | do not apply," quote, "to any act described in section
00:04:48.040 | 145.412, which is all about abortion."
00:04:52.200 | Oh, okay, so abortion is just an exception.
00:04:56.200 | Here's the implication. It is illegal,
00:05:03.520 | Minnesota and lots of states,
00:05:07.200 | to take the life of an unborn
00:05:09.400 | child if the mother wants the baby.
00:05:13.520 | And it's legal to take the life of an unborn child if she doesn't.
00:05:19.800 | In the first case, the law treats the fetus as a
00:05:25.280 | human with rights.
00:05:28.080 | In the second case, the law treats the fetus as a non-human with no rights.
00:05:35.760 | Humanness,
00:05:37.760 | humanness, the existence of a human being is decreed
00:05:42.160 | by the will of the mother.
00:05:45.320 | The baby is young and weak. It can't cry out, "I'm a human!"
00:05:52.040 | Therefore, the will of the older, the stronger,
00:05:58.000 | holds sway.
00:06:01.600 | And by her will,
00:06:03.800 | she may confer upon the human,
00:06:07.000 | "You're a human!" or not.
00:06:10.680 | If she does confer humanness on this thing,
00:06:18.240 | no one may kill this baby.
00:06:21.240 | And if she does not confer humanness on this baby,
00:06:25.480 | it may be legally,
00:06:28.560 | with impunity, killed.
00:06:32.000 | That is legally enshrined self-deification.
00:06:37.640 | The strong decide which of the weak are persons.
00:06:44.480 | We reject that in the case of Nazi anti-Semitism.
00:06:50.680 | We reject that in the case of Confederate race-based slavery.
00:06:55.840 | We reject that in the case of Soviet gulag.
00:06:59.960 | But in the case of the unborn,
00:07:01.960 | millions of people, millions in the church,
00:07:05.040 | which is what I care about most,
00:07:08.040 | embrace the
00:07:11.880 | self-deifying principle
00:07:13.960 | the human will of the strong
00:07:16.360 | confers personhood.
00:07:19.240 | If she wants the baby, it's a baby. If she doesn't, it's not. She's God.
00:07:28.480 | Now, according to God's Word,
00:07:31.560 | the baby inside and outside the womb gets its personhood from God.
00:07:39.400 | This is Psalm 139. "You formed my inward parts,
00:07:44.440 | you, God, you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
00:07:48.360 | I praise you for you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
00:07:52.280 | My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in the secret,
00:07:58.040 | intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
00:08:01.120 | Your eyes saw my
00:08:03.880 | unformed substance. In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me when as yet
00:08:11.120 | there was none of them."
00:08:13.680 | God's divine
00:08:17.760 | person forming work in the womb is not to be preempted by any self-deifying human being.
00:08:25.760 | So I say again abortion is caused
00:08:32.080 | significantly by
00:08:36.040 | human self-deification.
00:08:38.440 | Sobering. That's from John Piper's Sanctity of Human Life Sunday sermons titled "Doing the right thing never ruins your life."
00:08:47.000 | A belief that prevents abortion. Preached on January 28th, 2021.
00:08:52.320 | The entire sermon, of course, is online right now at DesiringGod.org. This clip was submitted to us by Lauren in Atlanta, Georgia.
00:09:00.040 | Thank you, Lauren, for sending us this potent clip. Powerful. A lot to think about.
00:09:04.400 | If you have a sermon clip, send it in to us.
00:09:07.160 | Tell us what bits of Piper's sermons have caught your attention and we share that clip with the APJ audience.
00:09:11.880 | If you've got one, email me. Give me your name, your hometown, the sermon title,
00:09:15.120 | the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio and tell me how it impacted you.
00:09:19.360 | Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it to me at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:09:23.360 | That's an email address. AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.
00:09:28.920 | Well, can an older man marry a younger woman?
00:09:34.000 | Specifically, can a 48 year old man marry a 24 year old woman? Both are Christians.
00:09:41.200 | What would you say? We are going to hear from Pastor John because it's a question with a lot to think about.
00:09:46.960 | And we will when we field this dilemma from a podcast listener next time.
00:09:51.360 | I'm your host Tony Ranke and we are rejoined in studio with Pastor John on Friday. We'll see you then.
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