Do Not Grow Weary In Doing Good

This year, rather than just having a Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, they've asked this to be a Sanctity of Human Life Week. With two Sundays, actually, they've asked pastors to speak to the issue of the Sanctity

issue of learning how to die. Not just die to self spiritually, but learning how to die, learning how to face death, learning how to die as a believer, and I really encourage you to pick up on that tape if you missed, because it's an issue that's not addressed, other than when you have to go to somebody's funeral and hear ten minutes of somebody's eulogy, that Christians have ever really focused on the issue of their own death, and Scripture shows us examples, just like Stephen, a godly

churches in this area, in this Ark City and just briefly surrounding area, not including Winfield. There's 40 to 50 churches in this city, and out of that, we will only get a handful that ever will mention or participate in anything to do with the sanctity of human life, anything to do with the pro-life, against abortion stance, and they have told us. We've tried to get Tim into the different churches, or a Family Life board member into the different churches. When I was on Family Life's board of directors, we contacted different churches, and they didn't want us to come in because it was too volatile an issue, too divisive.

We have people in our fellowship that are pro-choice and pro-life, and we don't want to rock the boat. We don't want to cause any kind of division in our fellowship. Pastors today will fail to respond to this issue, fail to address this issue because of the volatility, because of the prospect of a divisiveness happening, and or they will

area where they have received those crowns by living obediently after they've believed in Christ, they will come empty-handed, and there will be weeping there. There will be sorrow of heart there. So don't think just because we've prayed the prayer and asked Jesus into our lives that it's skate time now. We're called to walk obediently, and as worshipers, that's what a worshiper is, one who learns to walk obediently, regularly seeking his intimate presence, and from that, exampling

through friendship evangelism, through coming alongside and living a godly, righteous life before them that they seek to model that. They want that. They want whatever it is that allows you to be that. They want it, and they come to find out that it's being a worshiper of God, and that only happens as Jesus is your Lord and Savior, and the cycle repeats itself, and that's the purpose of the church, and the church does that daily, out there, facing all the issues of life.

If people are afraid, if pastors are afraid to touch this issue, why? What's your purpose? If we're afraid as a church to come to grips with this issue, then what is your purpose as a believer, church? What does God want you to do? What's he called you to be? You better come to grips with that, because you'll answer to him for it. You'll answer to God as to what you've done with Jesus from the time that you received

him as your Lord and Savior. Now, Thursday, this past Thursday, as I mentioned, was the 25th anniversary of what we call the Railway Decision, and that's what we use as the benchmark to signify that abortion rights became the law of the land to the states. The states could then make their own decisions upon that particular federal case, and all the states voted to go ahead and agreed. They didn't touch it.

They went ahead and agreed to allow abortion to be the law of the land. I mentioned Thursday, and for those that were at the march Thursday, some of this will be old hat, but there's several new things. Because it was cold Thursday, and we all were freezing, I cut this short, and I probably didn't share it with the passion that I'll share it with this morning, so bear with me if you were there Thursday. I mentioned Thursday that 25th anniversaries are usually special.

25th anniversaries are usually commemorated. If you're in business for 25 years at a certain business, at that same place for 25 years, you will inevitably be honored. They will give you a pin, probably with little diamonds and rubies in it, and you go, ooh, you know, nice. Or they'll give you a watch, or they'll give you a plaque, or they will honor you with this is your day, you know, you can take the day off, or whatever, but you will be recognized for your 25 years of service.

If you've been married for 25 years, that's a great accomplishment to stay with the same person for 25 years, and so those who ever put together the, you know, those little books that you buy, and on the first year anniversary, you get paper, or wood, or whatever it is, and on the second, you know, all this little stuff, when you get to 25, it starts getting expensive now. Now it becomes, the value of your marriage is, wow, now you get silver stuff, you know, precious metals start showing up, and it exemplifies the goodness, the wonder, the richness of the fact that you've been married for 25 years. Well, this is the 25th anniversary since abortion was legalized in our country, and it's really anything but a joyous occasion.

And I shared several recent occurrences, on Thursday I shared about these, and I have more to share as well today, that for Christians can tend to disturb or distress us where this issue is concerned, and 25 years of seeking to do something to abolish or overturn this or to minimize its effect can be wearing, and with the recent issues that are coming about where the sanctity of human life is concerned, it can be real wearing on Christians, it can cause us to seemingly feel weary. According to the Focus on the Family, each year an estimated 50 million abortions occur worldwide. 30 million happen legally, and 20 million illegally. Now if that's an average, and if we take that times the 25 years that abortion in this country

has been legal, if we take that average, and that's an approximation, so it would probably

that are here that may have gone through that and suffered the trauma of abortion, and then later have been living with the guilt of that, and God immediately is there to forgive, immediately is there to extend His grace and to extend His mercy to you. And before God, you can be clean through the blood of the Lamb, through Jesus Christ, and receive that grace and receive that mercy, but that still doesn't preclude the church from taking a stand against the atrocities that are happening. And so I must address that. I must address that issue.

The baby died two weeks later. The New York Times printed an article on November 2nd by MIT professor Steven Pinker, who posed the possibility of neonaticide as a parental right, neonaticide, what in the world is neonaticide? Under this proposal, parents would have one week after giving birth to decide whether to keep or kill their neonate, their newborn, since these immature entities, quote, do not

ago they proposed legalizing abortion in the first place and now it's second nature. Now it's accepted and if you came today and you realized that you heard talk to somebody and they said, yeah, Pastor Mark's talking about abortion and you probably went, again? We're going to hear another message on abortion again? Shame on you! Has it become so second nature to kill that you just don't want to hear about it anymore?

It's just an issue to harp on? Shame on us! Because if we have another 25 years before Jesus returns, neonaticide will become practice. Are you growing weary in standing against things such as this? Abortionist George Tiller now has a website. You can go to Tiller's website and after browsing photos of his operating suite, viewers can read Tiller's bland acknowledgment that he kills babies at 37 weeks gestational age or

at nine months, full term, you'll kill them. He has recently doubled the size of his abortion clinic and tripled his killing capacity. Last week we talked about Dr. Death, Jack Kevorkian. Well, article just a week ago says, first it was the terminally ill, in December it progressed to the chronically ill, and now two weeks ago, Dr. Jack Kevorkian and his cohort, George Redding, delivered to a Potomac, Michigan hospital the body of their latest

victim, a man who may have been mentally ill and incompetent of deciding whether or not to commit suicide.

no longer sacred, and people don't care, listen, and the church doesn't seem to care because the church is rolling over and playing dead for the most part. With all of these statistics and these insane circumstances, and there are more that I'll share confronting us and seemingly increasing all around us, it can be very easy to feel weary. I don't think there is a Christian here that you could ask that has not felt the pressure

It is easy to feel weary, to feel outnumbered, to feel that the enemy is winning, and to feel like at times, well, I just don't know if the battle is worth it. Look with me here at Galatians chapter 6. Paul wrote his epistle to the church at Galatia to encourage their weariness. He didn't just attack the Judaizers who were seeking to emphasize the legalistic obedience

He attacked the legalistic approach to salvation and he emphasized again that salvation is indeed solely by grace through faith. But he also addresses as he comes to the end of his epistle in chapter 5 that there is indeed a battle that rages, a battle between the flesh and the spirit. There's a war raging and as you and I see our own fallibility, as we see our own sin,

The church today, for a good part of it, does the same thing. If you come to our church, baptized in our baptistry, our way, take communion from our stuff, you're singing from our song books, you're part of this fellowship, then you're alright. So you follow these legalistic steps and you're okay. And Paul affirms that there is a battle. The flesh wars against the spirit, he says in chapter 5.

It's a battle. It's a struggle that you go up with and the evidences of the flesh, the activities of

You want to feel good, you want to get high, you want to take away the pain, you do this or that. Parties are great because parties take away the pain, they relax me and I feel more free and less inhibited. It's a feelings-oriented, it's a sensual thing. And he says the factors, the features of the flesh are many. Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy,

fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like. Those are the things we're going to deal with. You're going to have those wars. Those who commit those things, he says right after that, I warn you as I did before that those who live like this as practice will not inherit the kingdom of God. You see, legalism excuses, I can do this but then I can do my penance and I'm okay.

I can do it again and I can come back and do my penance and I'm okay. I can do this again, I can come back on the weekend and do my penance and I'm okay. And Paul says no, those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God but the fruit of the spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and

It's tough and it's wearying. That's what we're to do through the power of the Spirit if the Spirit of God's working in us. Then he says in verse ... and you look at that and you go, yeah, but how long can this continue? I mean, how long can we live in a society where the flesh dominates? How long can we continue to see this area of sin ravaging the nation and coming through

the church as well? And he says in verse seven, do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his flesh, from that flesh will reap destruction. The one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. And God's saying, that's not yours to be concerned with. This is what I've called you to do.

And don't be deceived, though God's not going to be mocked. Whatever a man sows, he also reaps. We're seeing that in our nation. We're seeing a nation that for the last 30 years has reaped to godlessness, to self-centered stimulation, anything goes, and we're now reaping the results of that with AIDS, with no authority and leadership anywhere, and our country is shaking and the foundations are beginning to crumble.

God is not mocked. You sow to the flesh, you're going to reap the flesh. You sow to the wind, you're going to reap the whirlwind. It will eventually get to you. I remember when I first started smoking, my thought was, I'm not hurting anybody else, and if down the road I have lung cancer or emphysema, well, so what? That's the attitude. I did the same thing when I started drinking.

Now, I don't do either one of those anymore, but guess what? I'm down the road, and I'm feeling the effects of what I did. And when you're younger, you don't think about that. You just think about the highs, you think about the fun, you think about the feeling at the time. But you will get down the road, hopefully, and God will not be mocked. You will reap what you sow.

It's inevitable, and God says that. Don't worry about that. This is what I've called you to do, to do good in the midst of that, to carry one another's burdens, to help one another along through these times of sin, and restoring them from those times of sin. Verse 9, he says, then he says, he addresses that, he says, let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Don't give up, church. I know you're weary. I know you're tired. I know it's been a struggle. I know the combinations of things in this life that you're facing, not just the abortion issue, but the combination of stresses, the combination of the sins of the flesh weigh heavy against you. But don't grow weary. Don't grow weary in doing good, in doing what's right, in doing the righteous thing, in taking

the stands for Christ's sake. Don't grow weary in that, for God promises that you'll reap a harvest. You will reap a harvest in the end if we don't give up. God will not be mocked, what you sow you reap, and don't grow weary, for at the proper time we'll reap a harvest if we don't give up. There is an article in this week's World magazine, now World is a Christian publication.

They are a post-trib in their theology, so some of the things are interesting that they share because they don't believe in pre-trib rapture. It's like a Christian Newsweek because of their news articles. In this article, this week by Bob Jones IV, they quote him as saying, quote, the 25th anniversary of the Roe Wade decision can be seen as kind of a valley forge, a bleak, soul-trying period in the long war against abortion, but it's no time for talk of surrender. George Washington knew during that long winter that he had achieved a major victory just by keeping an army in the field.

Similarly, there are signs that America is starting to turn away from abortion, end quote. I shared Thursday that the U.S. Center for Disease Control reports that in 1995, which are the most current figures that they have available, there were 200,000 fewer abortions than in 1990. Now that's the lowest percentage, 1990 was the height of abortions, there were 1.4 million abortions in this country, and it was at the pinnacle of the abortion, the number of abortions since the early 70s, since abortion was legalized.

And in 1995, there were 200,000 fewer abortions than in 1990, and it's the fewest since any time in the mid-1970s, since this has happened. So there seems to be a trend, and there's news articles, news programs that are still going to happen tonight, I think, and into next week that are mentioning that, that there seems to be a trend turning away from abortions, which is exciting.

they said they're afraid of the bombings that have been happening at the different abortion clinics. Now, like he said immediately, he thinks that, you know, that this past week I had no idea that in Ponca City there was a clinic that was doing abortions as recently as July of

and we did it for a few years before that here in Ark City. As many years as we do that, and those of you that participate with us, it's down to where it's just been the three schools, the ACCA and the Catholic school and us, and then a smattering of people from a few churches that walk with us. And Calvary has had the largest representation. But you look at that year after year, and it is easy to think, is this doing any good, and is this making any kind of an impact at all?

Don't grow weary in doing good.

And you think at that time, is this hour doing any good, is this time that you're taking doing any good where pro-life is concerned? Don't grow weary in doing good. Several of you over the years, especially the ladies, now we have had a couple of guys, which is exciting, but several of you have volunteered at Family Life Services and have gone and have taken a couple hours a week to answer phones and to talk to the girls and do pregnancy tests as the girls come in. And I know you feel like all those different pregnancy tests, or all those times that you've been there maybe, and a girl hadn't come in but you prayed, and you wonder, is this doing any good, is this really being effective at all?

Don't grow weary in doing good. You're sowing to the spirit. All of you that have done any kind of encouraging towards Family Life Services or towards a Pregnancy Crisis Center, I mentioned last Sunday that as a fellowship we give monthly to support Family Life Services, and there are those of you who know that and give here

The sac and the fetus within the sac is less than an eighth of an inch long or about the size of a match head. Two things. Two significant things I want to emphasize where this is concerned. I'll do one now and one in a little bit. Number one, up to this point, the pro-life side has been able to use pictures of unborn children to drive home a point where abortion is concerned.

Some have even taken pictures of abortions, suction abortions themselves, and blown those pictures up and you see them around. If you went to the Franklin Graham crusade at all, there were right-to-life people out at the entrance and they had a six-foot poster of a color picture of the remains of a baby that had gone through a suction abortion and it was very gross. What bothers me is people complain about that because they say, well, my child might see that and be upset about it. I hope so.

I hope we see it and are upset about it because that's what we're rolling over and playing dead and for the last 25 years have allowed to go on. But see those pictures and pins and all have been very effective. Now you have something that's the size of a matchstick in a gestational sac. It does not yet have the shape of a child and it's a very simple procedure.

So there's not the threat of the problems with a suction abortion or a saline abortion that there is today. So it's going to be simpler and it will take the emotional edge off of the woman having the abortion. It's just a simple procedure and it's actually not yet a baby. I can't discern the fact that it's a baby. It's simply a mass of cells. Let me get to point two here in a minute.

With that type of procedure, you can't use the visual stimuli like you could with later term abortions with the abortions of the children even several weeks old. Let me add to this though. With FDA approval this last year, women can now get high doses of oral contraceptives to be taken up to 72 hours after intercourse without having had previous contraception. Let me say that again.

Women can now, as of last year with FDA approval, they can receive a contraceptive, an oral contraceptive. You don't have to take the pill anymore. You don't have to take the pill anymore to avoid becoming pregnant. You know, you take it every day for so long and then you think you know what it's doing. But it keeps you from getting pregnant. You don't have to do that anymore.

According to this new FDA thing that they've just approved, you can go have sexual intercourse and up to three days after that, you can come and get this oral contraceptive and it will keep you from becoming pregnant. Now Washington State has gone ahead and okayed women to come. You can just go to your pharmacy in Washington State without a prescription and say, I want the doses of this medication that I can get. And they give it to you without a doctor's prescription.

This is labeled a contraceptive, but it is abortive in its function. It just simply does not allow the gestational sac to adhere to the uterine lining, to the walls of the uterus. And finally, of course, there's the Mifepristone or RU-486, the French abortion pill. It's currently only available in a few select cities in this country and that will allow now women to have abortions safely in the confines of their own home.

No going to abortion clinics. They can take care of it themselves. These new techniques and new devices, new contraceptive devices are blurring the line and that's their intent. They seek to blur the line for many people on when does life begin, bringing it down closer and closer. Now more and more it does not appear to be like a baby, a child, an infant in the womb.

It's simply a mass of cells. And the more they can blur that line, the less the conflict, the less the argumentation. And Christians are having to come face to face with when does life begin. Now for most Christians, most Christians believe that life begins at conception. And that's defined as the time that the egg is fertilized by the sperm. If I can just say for just a minute that I don't believe the Bible teaches that.

I believe the Bible teaches that life begins before conception. Jeremiah chapter 1, God says to Jeremiah, Jeremiah, I knew you and I called you from before the time that you were formed in your mother's womb and I have ordained you to be a prophet unto myself. Before. Before you were formed in your mother's womb. You go back to Genesis chapter 15 and when God calls Abram out and he makes a covenant

with Abram and he says, I am going to give unto you a son, a heritage, and this is still several years before he will realize that, I'm going to give you a child and look up in the sky, Abram, and count the stars if you can because so shall your descendants be. You see in the mind of God, God already knew Isaac and he was still several years away and he knew every descendant. The Bible says God can name all the stars. He has all the stars named.

He had all of Abraham's descendants named before there was yet one of them. So life, according to Scripture, begins in the mind of God. But we're going to see this argument being presented now as conception. When does conception actually occur? If conception is really the fertilization of an egg, well then when does fertilization really occur? One hour after sexual intercourse?

Two hours? One day? Three days? Eight to ten days? When does fertilization really occur? May I say that several medical studies are already indicating, and I have not read the studies, I would not probably understand them if I could read them. But according to the doctors who have read them and report to, like, Focus on the Family and World magazine, they indicate that several studies are indicating that much of the hormonal

birth control pills and devices labeled today as contraceptive, in other words, preventing fertilization, are actually abortive four to eight percent of the time. In other words, they allow fertilization and gestation to begin, they just don't allow it to adhere to the uterine wall, they pass it off, and that's abortive in its ultimate technique. So it's causing more and more questions among Christians regarding the use of birth control itself. It's causing the line to blur a little more.

And Christian, may I say, you better know where you stand. You better have an understanding in your own heart where this is concerned, not for my sake, not for the sake of the state, but before God, you better know. You don't have to answer to me, but you will have to answer for the Lord. You'll have to stand before God where these issues are concerned, what we've done with the Lord since we came to Jesus.

What can we do? What should we do? Well, we come back to Galatians chapter six, verse nine, and let us not grow weary in doing good. Let us not stop doing the things we know that are right. Let us not stop standing for righteousness' sake. Let us not stop standing in the gap for the sake of those who cannot defend themselves. We're called to do that in Scripture.

Stand up for those who are unable to defend themselves. Flip Benham, who is with Operation Rescue, was quoted as saying, quote, if abortionists are talking about getting to women eight to ten days after conception, we've got to get to them before conception. That's why we've got to focus more on abstinence education, end quote.

the stand for better abstinence-based curriculum into the public schools, and Family Life Services is doing that. Tim has been in the high school several times over the past couple years and presenting the abstinence-based curriculum, presenting the abstinence stand, and they're still allowing that so far, and we need to continue to pray for that and help support that in any way possible.

It's a real simple, easy procedure, and smooth-talking boys are going to use this to say, hey, they can do it with just a syringe. It's not really a child. It's just a mass of cells, and there's not the trauma of the DNCs or the saline or the suction abortions. There's not the traumas of that. It's easy. It's an easy procedure. Be aware of that. We need to continue to keep the public aware of the issues and not go away.

We need to continue to keep the public aware of the issues and not go away. Have you been at the Right to Life marches and you're weary? Don't grow weary. Continue to stand. Have you been at Life Chains? Have you been at the fair and you've helped run the booth up there at the fair every year

Have you written letters before, as I mentioned earlier, to congressmen and senators and even the president and even to the redatorials here in Park City, and you feel like what's the use? Don't grow weary. Don't grow weary. More importantly, are you doing anything at all where this is concerned? Is there anything at all that you're doing? And let me say that the most important thing we can do is to pray.

And immediately when I say that, and I said this first service because I've been there. Immediately when I say that, every mind can go, yeah, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to pray. I'm okay. I haven't volunteered. I haven't gone to the fair. I haven't gone to the life chain. I haven't gone to the march. I haven't helped out where they've needed help up there, but I can pray.

I'm going to pray. That's the one I'm going to hang on to. I'm going to brace prayer. That's the one I'm going to do. Okay, I'm going to pray. When we say that, will you pray more than just today or just this week and then shove it in the box and wait until next January where the march, or actually October when the life chain comes out, and then pull it out of the box again and pray for it then?

Or pray for it when you happen to see others that are picketing in front of abortion clinics and going to jail, and you stop and you pray just a minute for them and for the lives of the unborn and then shove it back in the box and forget to pray again until next January 22nd? Is that how you're going to commit to pray? Is that going to be your part of it? And it may sound harsh because I've been there, because I do that with situations.

Unless I write it down or have a journal and stick to that journal and pray that way, I can excuse praying altogether. I can say, I'm going to pray for you. I have a care list that I am supposed to pray for, and if I don't keep that before me, I don't pray. I know me. I know you. So if you're going to say, I'm going to pray, what does that mean? That's a cop-out for most Christians rather than the strategic area of battle for Christians.

So yeah, we need to pray, but don't use it as a cop-out to just say, well, I don't need to do any of this other stuff either. More importantly, get involved in the lives of other people with the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's one. How about that?

are about four times as likely to have an abortion as women reporting some affiliation. Let me say that again. The Guttmacher Institute reports that for women who say they have no religious affiliation, they are four times as likely to have an abortion as a woman who says she just has some religious affiliation. It doesn't say that she says she's a born-again Christian.

She just has some religious affiliation. In other words, she's around some Christian a lot who lives the life of Christ a lot and impacts her life with godliness a lot so that when it comes down to those times of making that decision, she won't do it. She may not be saved yet, but because some other Christian has been impacting her life for Christ, she chooses life. And that's statistically proved.

Where are you, Christian? We're living in the age of Laodicea. This is the age of the lazy, lethargic church. There is very little of the church that's white-hot for Jesus anymore. We're about our own business in the name of God, my own life, my own interests, my own studies, my own sphere of circle in Jesus' name, of course. Where's the church? Where are you?

We're just this issue is concerned. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Verse 10 then says in Galatians 6, Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. Brothers and sisters, where are these children regarding believers?

Where are these children as believers are concerned? Jesus said, Let these little ones come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the

You must come as a little child. God loves children. He loves the unborn and he wants people after his own heart. Where are you? Heavenly Father, forgive us when we roll over and play dead and think this issue is going to go away or resolve itself or somebody else is going to take care of it. Somebody else will march. Somebody else will write. Somebody else will go take the stands and hold the signs.

Somebody else is going to do it. Somebody else will be the volunteer. Somebody else will adopt the child. Somebody else will do it. I'm too busy. I've got other things to do.