I survived partial birth abortion, and I remember it. Yes, it is true, I was in the womb and nearly developed, about to enter the world as a new child. At any point the pains of labor could have begun. My body had begun to turn, my head was facing down, I was entering the canal and the pain of being born was starting, when all of a sudden I felt nothing and I was yanked from the womb. I had shed no tears, I felt nothing, and yet I was faintly breathing. Fortunately for me, another doctor, a good physician entered into my room, and as I was being tossed into the trash with the rest of the aborted children he noticed that I still had breath in my lungs. He plucked me from the heap of death and placed me gently in an incubator, he helped me to breath, and nursed me to health. I have grown some since then, I still have birth defects from the whole procedure, and I am finally getting to the point where I can eat a little bit of solid food, though it takes a deal of searching to find anything palatable. The saddest thing of the whole process is that I can still remember seeing in that mass of partially born children many whose eyes were not completely dim, and whose breath had not entirely departed, and yet it appears that the clinic has no intention of reviving them.Will anyone stand with me against the heinous practice? Are there any doctors out there who still deliver children? After conception occurs, does a child have even slim chance of surviving delivery?
“Except a man be born again…” Spiritual abortions like the one I described are occurring daily in churches across the globe. Spiritual children are being yanked from the womb before there lungs are developed, they are being pierced through before they ever come into the light, and what should break us the most is that they end up in everlasting darkness. Even you may have been aborted at an altar, and what you think is your new life may merely be the faint breathing of survival.
Is this a sick illustration? It is not sick enough. It should be more offensive even than this, we must wake up. You may be an abortionist! To my shame I have performed a number of them myself. Let me explain the process:
The Pains of Labor:
At some point after a child of God is conceived they face a painful realization. I remember when this happened to me, I was 18 years old and had committed certain immoral acts, which had laden me with guilt. I had passed the threshold of my own perceived piety, the rushing realization that I was immoral, and moreover deserving of death was a reality. I knew full well that I needed the rebirth, at least I needed reconciled in someway to God, so that I would not be condemned. (Note: it had nothing to do with pleasing God, I just wanted to go to heaven.)
The water breaking:
We all have heard in some way shape or form that Jesus came to save us. After this initial guilt and desire for an undeserved heaven settles in the unborn child determines to turn to Jesus.This too happened in my life. I knew I need forgiveness, and I was told that Jesus was the only place to find it. The water broke, I was on my way to being a new child, I had seen my guilt, my need of a savior, I knew who the savior was, and I was going come to Him and receive my new life. I was about to be born again.
The first gasp of air:
The sinner will kneel at the altar in humility, knowing that they have done wrong, and knowing that they are in the proper place to put it right. I remember that gasp, the hope of new life. I was at an altar in Findlay OH, on my knees, praying a prayer, oh the blessed hope of life everlasting!
The abortion:
At the point when the nearly born again sinner needs nothing more than the clear concise gospel given to them, the preacher or layman reaches out with a generic almost gospel and slays the nearly converted with it. This I remember all to well, and have been reminded of it in my own church, on radio programs, here on Sermonaudio, and nearly everywhere professing Christianity goes. I heard a message that simply said ask Jesus into you heart and you will be born again. So I prayed the prayer, I asked him in, I rejoiced, shed a little alligator tear or two, and went on my carnal way. I was never faced with the first word of Jesus, I was never reached with the first word of John the Baptist, I was never greeted with that first word of the apostle Peter, or with the repeated message of the apostle Paul. I was aborted by a false gospel that mentioned nothing of repentance, nothing of new life, nothing of the death of the old man, nothing at all. I was not transformed, instead I was deformed. I had my conscience eased, without my heart being made new. I had my conscience crucified instead of the old man, what I had was not new life, just the same old death restructured a bit.
The trash can:
Most of these partial births end up in the can, surrounded by stained glass, and plush pews, imagining that they are reborn, yet never breathing the breath of new life. This is the part of the blog that may get me in trouble, but I have been there. I was in that can for over two years, and I have talked to people that have spent much of there life in that place, rotting and corrupting away in the same sin, and depravity they were in prior to praying their little prayer to let Jesus in.The trash can is not new life! The new life is victorious, there is repentance, there is a new understanding of God, and of self, there is a new desire to please Him, and deny self. There is power to overcome sin, there is freedom from habitual carnality, there is new life!! Yes we fall, but our life, if it is new is characterized by victory not defeat!!!
The question we must ask ourselves is are we performing abortions so that we can line our pews with the carcasses of “almost Christians.” –A term used in one of Wesley’s Sermons. Or are we going to be the good physicians? Will we preach repentance and the unborn nearly converted soul feel the pains of birth so that they can be a viable child in the kingdom? Are we patient enough to let a child develop in the womb of there own conviction being nurtured by the placenta of their conscience, until they be delivered from that place by the whole gospel of redemption? Or will we continue to yank them out prematurely and hope that somehow they will learn to live in the trash can amongst the rest of the almost born?
I know this was a real hard rant, and maybe the theology was poor, but at some point a few brave souls need to truly stand in the gap, cut through the emotional manipulations of big events, and purpose driven painless gospel presentations that mention nothing of repentance unto God. We need preachers that will cut to the heart as the apostle Peter did, those that will stand in the face of the religious establishment and endure the stones as Stephen did, those that will receive the assatination attempts as the apostle Paul did. Maybe then we will hear the healthy cry of the new born child crying out for repentance unto God.