SPROUL: I have seen women who have gone through the experience of abortion
who on countless occasions have said to me and to others that it wasn’t such an easy trip after all
and that their friends who encourage them to do it said, “oh, there’s nothing to it. You’re in,
you’re out. You know, there’s no pain and it’s a quick solution to the pressing problems that
I have in the light of possible scandal or an alienation from my community and so on.”
But they looked at me as people who've been deceived and have expressed a sense of betrayal,
“I didn't realize what I had done”. And when they came to themselves, they were so paralyzed
by guilt, so destroyed by guilt that they wondered if there was any hope for their lives at all. Well
my dear friends, I don't want to soft-pedal this point at all. As I said, I am profoundly convinced
that abortion is not only wrong, it’s not only a sin, it's not only evil, it's a monstrous evil.
And the commission of an act that is monstrously wicked incurs a heavy load of real guilt.
So I’m not going to say to a person who says,
“I've had an abortion. I feel guilty.” I’m not going to say to that person, “Hey,
don't take it so seriously. It's no big deal. You know, say a prayer. Do a couple
of errands and charity and so on and that'll take care it”. No. This is a serious matter.
But the thing I want us to understand is that abortion is not the unforgivable sin.
It’s because of actions like this that we perform under the
pressures of avoiding and evading unhappy consequences of our actions
that is of the very essence of the concern of the Christian faith. This is what Jesus died for
to deal with that problem of guilt and when I say to you, “What do you do with your guilt?”
I don’t want to just leave you, you know, wondering “well, what can I do
with my guilt?”. I'm convinced that this is it, the heart of the matter. This is why I
am a Christian. What drove me to the cross of Christ, ladies and gentlemen, was guilt
and a desperate need to start over, a desperate need to have the slate wiped clean.
I remember a passage from the Old Testament where the prophets speaking for God says, “Come,
let us reason together. If your sins are as scarlet,
they shall be white as snow. If they’re as crimson, they shall be purified.”
We hear the prophets announce the intent of God to reach down to His people who are paralyzed,
and crippled, and racked with grief over their guilt that the God that is revealed in Scripture
is God who is a God of passion. He is not indifferent to evil. He’s very passionate in His
rebuke and admonition against evil. But, ladies and gentlemen, He’s not simply a God of passion.
Perhaps the most obvious characteristic of that God is that He is a God of compassion,
a God who hears the cries of His people. He doesn’t only hear the cries of the blood of
those slain babies crying out to Him from the ground, He hears the cries of the mothers. He
hears the anguish and the pain of their guilt and He stands ready at any second to make you clean,
to heal your soul by offering you forgiveness. There is no more redeeming word that we could
hear from God than to hear God say to you “My son, my daughter your sins are forgiven.”
Forgiveness in my judgment is as real as guilt but, of course, there are things we have to do
to experience forgiveness. God does not just pass out forgiveness willing nilly. God does
not just sit up in heaven and say, “Well, boys will be boys and girls will be girls. No matter
what they do they're covered. I’ll take care.” No, no, no. God commands that we turn from our evil.
God commands that we confess our evil to Him. God commands that we come to Him and
put our trust and embrace His Son. We put our trust in Him and we acknowledge that, “Yes,
God, You have covered my guilt, you have taken care of the problem of my guilt in the cross.”
But if you want the cross to cover you, you have to repent of your sin. You have
to resolve that you will not do this again and you have to acknowledge your guilt. Not to me,
but to God and you have to humble yourself and say, “God, please forgive me.”