Too Young to Hear

 

A friend recently commented on this video that it is hard to imagine that in 2021 we need to teach people that a baby in the womb is not a blob of cells but a real person, growing in the image of God.

“Help Before Abortion,” is a ministry set up in an effort to reach women before they head to the abortion mill to “get rid of  a problem.” (Indeed, these women are creating a different set of problems that present themselves when people commit murder).

As stated by the ministry leader, there are two main goals of   “Help Before Abortion:” (1) to be the voice of Truth to women (and men) considering abortion, because so many Christian voices are silent about what God says regarding murder, and snatching others from peril.  And 2nd, to exhort the church and pulpit, women’s leaders and discussion and discipleship groups to talk about this for what it is – the murder of a human being by those who are called to love them the most.

Many years ago I challenged a younger woman who was an abortion abolitionist about the graphic abortion signs that she and some others were displaying at a Junior High School. I knew she had been to a local university campus and asked why she didn’t save those graphic signs for the older students.

“That is too late,” she said. She went on to explain that by the time students are in high school many have been indoctrinated with worldly “truths” and it is hard to convince them otherwise. Such “truths” as: it is ok to kill your baby, it is only a blob of cells, and that babies are an expensive problem in life (rather than a blessing of the Lord, as the Bible teaches).

I realized that what she was saying was true. My own children had been given an introduction to things like preventing AIDS and birth control in the 4^th and 5^th grades in public school (and that was years ago).

The Word of God says that we are to be in the world but not a part of it. As Christians we can shelter our kids from the ungodly teaching of the public sphere, but what happens when they reach an age when they need to know? Will they be more influenced by their peers in secular settings or stand firm in the truth of what they have learned from their parents and the preaching from the pulpit of their churches?

How young is too young to teach a child that abortion is murder? How young is too young to teach a child that a family is there to help them in the crises of life that will come (these will be different for everyone, but to everyone they will come).

I heard the testimony of one Christian woman that she had an abortion because she knew that being pregnant out of wedlock at age 20 would “devastate her parents.” When we refuse to talk about these things; abortion as murder, other young people who face an unplanned pregnancy, etc., we teach that they are “unmentionable.” Most of us would hate for the world to learn that our children were committing sin, but would we really be devastated? Disappointed maybe; devastated, probably not.

What do our young people understand about the doctrine of the depravity of man? What is their understanding of the image of God in every living being? Do they know, do they hear it preached that abortion is murder of an innocent life?

Do they believe that we, as parents, are too fragile to understand such a sin? Do they know that God forgives? That He honors obedience?

I am afraid that our land is so polluted with the blood of innocent children that Christians have passed the time of claiming to be “pro-life” and showing up at a march once a year. Our own  “Help Before Abortion” needs to start at home and be extended to any young person within the reach of the pulpits of our churches (and beyond!). The men need to have the same understanding in order to battle the influence of the world.

What I learned many years ago is still true, if we wait until children are in their teens to teach that abortion is murder, we have waited too long.