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Enjoying God Blog

Martin Luther King, Jr., Day falls on the third Monday in January each year. It is a day designed to awaken the people of our country to the urgent need for racial harmony and racial reconciliation. Sanctity of Life Day typically falls on the Sunday closest to January 22, the day marking the Supreme Court’s decision in the now infamous case, Roe v. Wade. Likewise, it is a day designed to awaken the people of our country to the devastation caused by abortion and the ever-increasing number of lives that have been taken. Thus, by God’s providential design these two issues, abortion and racism, are forever linked in our annual calendar.

Neither abortion nor racism is primarily a political or social issue. They are both biblical and spiritual issues.

Here is a graphic illustration of what abortion has done in our country alone since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Consider these 25 states: Kentucky, Oregon, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Iowa, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kansas, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, West Virginia, Nebraska, Idaho, Maine, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming.

If you add up the populations in these states, they equal about 55 million people. That is approximately the number of unborn babies that were killed in the United States alone since Roe v. Wade in 1973.

On Martin Luther King, Jr., day we focused on the issue of race. But abortion is also an issue with profound racial implications. Since 1973, 14 million black babies have been aborted. That is more than 2 ½ times the total number of deaths among African-Americans during the same period from AIDS, cancer, accidents, heart disease, and violent crime combined. Think about it: more than ¼ of all abortions are performed on black women, even though blacks make up only 13% of the U.S. population. Let’s move beyond the African-American community. When you combine African-American and Hispanic women you have only about ¼ of the female population in our country. Yet these two groups account for 57% of the abortions performed.

Every day in America 1,300 black babies and 700 Hispanic babies are killed in America. Every day in America nearly 3,300 babies of all races are killed in America.

So what does the Word of God have to say about this? Consider Psalm 139:13-16,

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there were none of them” (Ps. 139:13-16).

What this tells us is that every human being, of every ethnicity, is created and shaped by God, bearing his image. This alone bears witness to the equality of all people, their inherent value in God’s sight, and the dignity and honor we must show to every individual.

When you endorse or permit the killing of an unborn baby or permit feelings in your heart of dislike and suspicion and disdain toward a person of a different skin color, you are blaspheming the majesty of the Creator God. You are denouncing the redemptive work of Jesus Christ. You are despising the shed blood of the cross. You are slandering the power of God in shaping men and women of all races in his image. You are denigrating and denying the purpose of God in redeeming men and women of all races and colors and making them a kingdom of priests. Abortion is blasphemy. Racism is blasphemy.

You cannot worship and glorify the majesty of God or embrace his redemptive purposes in Christ while treating his supreme creation with contempt—whatever color or whatever age that creation might be.

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