I just finished watching a second video put out by the Center for Medical Progress that–as unbelievable as this sounds–is more damning than the first. It’s impossible to watch a video like this and not cry or feel anger. Someone talking with excitement about selling baby body parts shows the callousness of humanity reaching new depths.

Yet these videos made me have sympathy for a group of victims I had never thought of before–namely mothers who have had an abortion. Many of these women were pushed into this situation. They bought the lie–that the life inside of them didn’t matter, at least not as much as their own lives do. They allowed the workers at Planned Parenthood to tell them that abortion was what was right, that there is nothing wrong with it, and that the “thing” inside of them was just a clump of cells. They were led to believe by the counselors there that they had to do what was right for them, and not for their baby.

And they did it. They got the abortion, possibly even through tears.

Now, perhaps years or decades later, they wake up to realize that while the Planned Parenthood workers were telling them their baby wasn’t real enough to keep, those same workers turned around and sold the scraps. To see their boss joking that, with any luck, they could get a Lamborghini out of it.

We need to take a moment to think. We need to breathe. I think that there is a place for anger and there is a place for sadness. But we cannot stop there. I need to remind myself that God didn’t save me to condemn others. He saved me to be his mouthpiece. And shame on me if I sit here crying and feeling hatred for these people. If it weren’t for the Lord saving me I would have never been able to see how damnable my sin is, and who knows where my callousness would have taken me by now.

The Bible predicts the moral slide that happens to unbelievers over time. Ephesians 4:17-19:

So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness.

If these three verses aren’t the perfect narrative of these videos I don’t know what is. But he then goes on to say some very important words for us to remember:

But you did not learn Christ in this way.

We had to learn Christ. We were born hating God.

Someone had to come teach us the truth. They had to take the time to tell us how sinful we were and how Christ’s death on the cross could save us.

It is critical that we would have compassion.

So many women have been lied to and have been told that they own their own bodies. They have been told that they are in charge of their lives and they get to do whatever they want, whenever they want, with whomever they want. Men have abused women and despite the fact that many women would lean toward keeping the baby, they have manipulated and convinced them to have abortions. And many of these men were born with terrible examples as fathers who never taught them how to treat women.

I’m not justifying sin. What I am saying is that we are called to share the gospel with all kinds of people even those who do things that make us cry and get angry. Paul sitting in jail with evil guards keeping him chained, couldn’t stop sharing the gospel with them to the point where he tells the Philippians that the gospel is going forth more with him in jail, than if he were free to move around.

In moments like these we can’t forget that the Lord is working. There are thousands and thousands of men and women who, after watching the videos and after hearing so many Christians talk about the evil of abortion, are being confronted in a new way with old sins they have committed. Sins they long ago had learned to suppress, these videos have surfaced them again. If that is you, I beg you to not try to push it back down, but to confess it to the Lord and find salvation.

It’s important that we don’t stop at anger and sadness, but that God would use us to turn this evil into victory. My prayer is that some people who feel guilt right now would hear the gospel, and that they will come to know the Lord who is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If you want to know more about what it means to be forgiven from your sin and have a relationship with Jesus Christ, read more here, or contact me here.