Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Can Pro-Life Advocates Lie to Save Lives?

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Can Pro-Life Advocates Lie to Save Lives? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Pretty heavy topic today. Can we lie? Can we lie to women who
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  are seeking abortions if by lying we increase the likelihood of saving the baby's life.
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  When this question came in, it immediately grabbed my attention. It's a
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  question from an anonymous woman. Pastor John, Hello, and thank you for
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  this podcast. I work in a crisis pregnancy center in a small community in
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  the Bible Belt, helping meet the needs of pregnant women and single mothers.
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  Along with providing access to clothing and parenting classes. We also share the glorious
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  message of Christ's work on the Cross for sinners. It is our desire that
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  expecting mothers make the right choice. I know God is sovereign and only the
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  Holy Spirit can make dead hearts come alive to make those right decisions. And
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  this leads to my question. Our clinic has experienced pressure from volunteers and leaders,
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  supported by local pastors to pressure women and couples to save the baby,
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  or else the mother and father will be condemning their child to an eternal hell.
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  For withholding from them a chance to be born, to live, and
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  to accept Christ as their savior. You have made a strong case the babies
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  who die or who are killed are saved. I'm thinking of Abj's five fourteen
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  and six eighty four. The theology I hear in the clinic is wrong,
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  and I think others in the clinic know it's wrong too. I have come
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  now to believe that this is an intentionally manipulative scare tactic, and anything goes
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  approach to the goal of saving lives. And that's my question for you.
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  Is it permissible to intentionally scare and manipulate mothers with untrue doctrine if it increases
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  the likelihood that a baby will live? If this question or simply a yes
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  and no question with no other implications, probably skip it, say Tony,
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  let's just move on, because nobody wants to listen to an episode where I
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  say no next question. But that is my short answer, namely no.
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  No. It's not permissible from a Biblical point of view, from a Christian
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  point of view, it is not permissible to intentionally scare and manipulate mothers with
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  untrue doctrine in order to increase the likelihood that a baby will live. No.
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  And I'm not just focusing on the scare and manipulate part. That's bad
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  enough. When I say no, I'm mainly focusing on the use of untrue
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  doctrine doctrinal falsehoods lies in the service of a guess as to whether a child's
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  life will be saved. In other words, I'm saying no to making a
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  practice of lying about sacred things in order to increase, according to our own
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  human guesswork, the possibility that a child would not be aborted. I'm saying
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  no to that. But the reason I'm willing to say more about this question
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  rather than just know, is that there are wider cultural implications behind that question.
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  As I hear it, this practice of bending or marginalizing or flatly contradicting
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  serious biblical moral considerations in a human invented so called life saving strategy has taken
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  root in American Christianity in recent years with harmful effect, acts which we have
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  scarcely seen the end of. In other words, I don't think this particular
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  practice of compromising moral means to accomplish hoped for good ends is the only case
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  we're facing. So let me try to say something about this kind of strategy
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  against that wider cultural situation. The biblical reality at stake, the biblical reality
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  at the root of the issue is that God is a God of truth.
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  God never lies tied Us one two. Let God be true, though every
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  man a liar Romans three four. And consequentially, his people are people of
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  truth. We are workers for the truth third John one eight. We speak
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  the truth with our neighbor for Ephesians four twenty five. We cannot do anything
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  against the truth Tewod Corinthians thirteen eight. We do not lie to one another
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  Colossians three nine. We do not join the devil in his nature, for
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  when he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is
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  a liar and the father of lies. John eight forty four. Truth is
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  at the heart of who God is and at the heart of who we are
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  as His people. So a so called life saving strategy built on regular deception
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  is utterly contrary to who God is and who we are as his people.
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  It aligns us with the devil, who is not only a deceiver from the
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  beginning, but also a murderer. So to think we can borrow the devil's
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  strategy of deception to save life is going to backfire, and we are going
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  to be found serving his purposes, not God's. Now, add to this
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  basic truth about God, and his people, the Biblical abhorrence of doing evil
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  that good may come, In other words, coming up with human strategies that
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  involve moral compromise in order to pursue human guesses that more good will come that
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  way. The Bible opposes that presumption. For example, the apostle Paul defending
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  himself against that very accusation in Romans three to five, following, if our
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  unrighteousness serves to show good God's righteousness, what should we say that God is
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  unrighteous to inflict wrath on us? I speak in a human way, by
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  no means, For then how could God judge the world. But if through
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  my lie, God's truth abounds to his glory, why am I still being
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  condemned as a sinner? And why not do evil that good may come?
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  As some people slanderously charge us with, saying their condemnation is just wow.
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  When people accuse Paul of teaching that we may do evil that good may come,
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  he's angry and he says, let them be condemned. That's serious.
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  Later in Romans six, he asks are we to continue in sin that grace
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  may abound? And his answer is not just know. His answer is that
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  it contradicts the very nature of who we are as new creatures in Christ,
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  How can you die to sins still live in it? In other words,
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  new creatures in Christ trust God with the outcomes of walking in Christian integrity and
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  holiness. We trust God with the outcomes. Christians should not do evil that
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  good may come. It's a lack of faith. We should not embrace evil
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  practices or evil people in the vain hope that such compromises will advance human created
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  strategies for doing good. It is virtually certain that our duplicity will be exposed,
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  indeed shouted from the housetops, and when it is, the undermining of
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  Christian integrity may send more people to hell and more babies to the dumpsters than
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  if we had spoken the whole truth, lived consistent lives of radical Christian integrity,
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  loved others, made sacrifices and been willing to suffer, and prayed earnestly.
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  I think that one of the great needs of the hour is for Christians
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  to stop compromising our biblical faithfulness by using the weapons of the world in the
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  service of strategies that we think are more likely to do good. Because we
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  have calculated that compromise will work. Here's a closing admonition from paul In to
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  Corinthians ten three. Though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging
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  war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of
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  the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. God is able to
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  make consistent, humble, trusting, sacrificial obedience have vast soul saving, life
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  giving effects beyond all our human calculations of what good may come through compromise,
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  pointed words. Thank you, Pastor John, and that Romans three eight text
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  is worth a lot of reflection. Why not do evil that good may come?
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  That text came up another time on this podcast and another episode on abortion
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  of all Places in APJA six eighty four. That episode was about if all
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  babies go to heaven? Why oppose abortion? And you can find that one
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  APJA six eighty four at askpastor John dot com very much related on the other
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  side of the spectrum to this question. Thank you, Pastor John, and
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  thanks for joining us today. If you want to ask Pastor John, type
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  out your question, even your most sensitive question, and email it to me
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  at ask Pastor John at Desiring Good dot org. Feel free to make it
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  anonymous. If the question or your situation requires it, we always honor that.
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  Of course, I'm your host, Tony Rank. You have a wonderful
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  weekend, and we'll see you back here on Monday.