Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: The decision seemed like the only option at the time. But years later, the waves of shame still crash in without warning. The grief returns each spring, each birthday that will never be celebrated. For those carrying the weight of an abortion, the guilt can feel inescapable.

So how does someone move forward when the past feels like an anchor? Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll speaks directly to those living with this secret pain, offering genuine biblical hope. You see, God specializes in what seems impossible, setting captives free and restoring broken lives.

Chuck Swindoll: Sometimes the sins we commit are public for all to see. At other times, our transgressions are private. But be sure of this: God sees. God sees it all. And we carry a guilt and often shame that we feel at times is so heavy we believe that it will never leave us. Throughout my more than 50 years in ministry, I have seen fewer sins cause more humiliation and pain than abortion.

But I am here to tell you that nothing shocks our God, and he is a God of grace. In Christ, there is always forgiveness, there is healing, there is hope and a future. In my message today, we will examine a number of significant passages on this very subject. But I would like to read for you ahead of time one selection of scripture from the pen of King David. He was one who had sinned sexually, who bore the weight of his guilt, and who experienced the grace of God.

My Bible is open, and I hope yours is too, to Psalm 51. I am reading David's words from verses 1 through 4 and 15 through 17. David writes: "Have mercy on me, O God, because of your unfailing love. Because of your great compassion, blot out the stain of my sin. Wash me clean from my guilt. Purify me from my sin. For I recognize my rebellion; it haunts me day and night.

Against you, and you alone, have I sinned. I have done what is evil in your sight. Unseal my lips, O Lord, that my mouth may praise you. You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God."

Bill Meyer: You’re listening to Insight for Living. If you’d like to start your day with a dose of encouragement, sign up for the Insights daily devotional. You can do that today online at insight.org/devotional. And now, let’s begin the study that Chuck titled “Abortion . . . after the Fact.”

Chuck Swindoll: It is easy for us to wonder how anyone could want to have an abortion after hearing something like we have heard earlier regarding the scriptural facts and the sheer logic of doing away with life. However, it isn't quite so mysterious or strange when you realize that most of us, when we move away from one another and that sense of feeling in the majority, which only takes place in the gathering of God's people, it is easy for us to forget that when all alone or seized by panic or in some way convinced in the illogic of what I have often called temporary insanity following sin, disobedience, it is easy to forget that we can do things that simply lack sense.

And when you think about it, there really are occasions where we could talk ourselves into an abortion. I'm thinking of the 27-year-old young career woman who has been offered her long-awaited dream in life, in business, in management, really a fast track to the top. She's sexually active, but she is not married, and she finds out two days after the offer that she is pregnant. She's not ready for marriage, and she is certainly not ready for a child. A maternity leave would be sounding the death knell to her career.

And the father of the child adds to her dilemma by saying rather matter-of-factly, "We can take care of the problem," translated, get an abortion. Her whole future is on the line, and she is all alone away from her family, and actually no one would ever know. And so she makes that decision.

Another case would be the 17-year-old high school senior who lets her passions get away from her the night of the prom, and she discovers only months before graduation that she is going to have a baby. Her parents will never understand. Her boyfriend thinks that there is a way that he can scrape up enough money to help her with this problem. And she thinks of trying to be a mother at 17 and living with the stigma of an illegitimate child, or even if she escaped to some home to have the baby away from her familiar surroundings. None of that seems to fit. How quick and she thinks how easy it would be to simply have an abortion.

Or what about the 39-year-old mother of five whose husband has recently left? And in a night of foolish passion with a friend, she gets pregnant. The last thing she wants is another child. She cannot already find herself seeing her way through financially with her own responsibilities, and now she learns that she is going to have a sixth child. Obviously to her, the answer is what we might call a quick fix. And that seems to be what she reads about in the literature and from the lips of so many who would encourage her not to do the foolish thing, but to simply come into a clinic and have someone take the tissue from within her.

My hope in this message, though it is brief, is to give equal time to what I said earlier. My hope is to help all of us understand what it must be like to make a decision like I have just described and illustrated in a moment of panic and fear, only to look back on it years later and feel the horror of regret and the inescapable feeling of responsibility, or perhaps the word is irresponsibility, in making a decision that seemed right at the moment but now, in light of the passing of years, it is not right at all.

I want to speak to you who have gotten an abortion. And there are a number of you. I spoke with five this morning following the message that I brought. Two, it seemed, had worked through the whole lingering sad cycle of remorse and sadness and regret, and three have not. And even the mention of the word brings about a cycle of depression that these brave ladies who confessed to me their sorrow, they talked about how they find it recurring and no matter what they do, they cannot put it to rest. I hope to help you.

Or to you who have aided in an abortion medically. Or to you who have given advice to someone you loved thinking that it would help, and you realize now it did not. One pastor writes these words: "I've talked to many women who say to me, 'Please tell the truth to the women of the church. Abortion is not a quick fix. What accompanies the quick fix may very well be a lifetime of regret, shadows, sinister thoughts, crippling dreams, and nightmares.'"

He continues: "Before I spoke on this topic, I received this note from a man: 'When I heard you were going to speak on the topic of abortion, I just knew I had to write to you. This topic has crippled me more than any other subject. Right out of high school, I got my girlfriend pregnant. I insisted that she get an abortion. There's a hundred reasons I could give why I took the actions I did, but they would all be lies. I settled for the quick fix, the easy way of avoiding the embarrassment of being found out.

And you know what? That was a lie too. Yes, it avoided some embarrassment, but it was replaced by a different type of pain, the pain of remorse. Each spring when life is starting to bloom, there is a renewed pain that my child could be adding another year.' And then these other words: 'Through genuine repentance, anyone can receive forgiveness from God. It is a marvelous healing gift to be claimed by everyone.

But in my next breath, I have to say that even though you are forgiven before God, you may still see and feel some scars. Don't buy the lie that a quick fix has no long-term effects. Little is said about the emotional trauma that accompanies an abortion, and seldom are warnings given about the medical complications that often come as a result of an abortion. Statistics show that after an abortion has been performed, a woman faces increased possibility of future miscarriages, tubal pregnancies, premature births, and sterility.'"

So I want to begin with a desire for understanding. Let's put it that way, what I'm calling a desire for understanding. First, I want you to understand me. I am not soft on abortion. If you believe that, just call to mind the things you heard me say earlier. Nothing I say in this message is designed to take any of the edge off of what I said in my first message. My hope is to bring needed balance between what could easily come off as uncaring and cold and statistical, which some might call my first message, and to bring the balance necessary for those who live in the regret of the past. My hope is to communicate in this message the possibility of full recovery and a return to a life that is productive, fruitful, and free of guilt.

Second, as I talk about a desire for understanding, I want the person who had an abortion to have an understanding. My desire is that you understand God's response. We live in an imperfect world. Disobedience happens on a daily basis. To require perfection of others or of ourselves is going too far. If I have learned anything in the five decades I have spent in the pastorate, it is that sin happens on a regular basis in others' lives and in my life. Disobedience regularly occurs. Bad decisions are made even by good and wise people. Wrong takes place.

And what I have discovered is the last person we are willing to forgive is ourselves. Most of us are readily willing to forgive another individual, certainly upon confession and repentance. But though we may confess and repent of wrong, we put ourselves under a cloud of unproductive years by refusing to forgive and to take God at his word. So my desire is that the person who has made this awful, awful mistake, this act of disobedience, you can go on. There is a tomorrow.

Now, my Bible happens to be open to Psalm number 14 in the word of God. If you have a copy of the scriptures, I invite you to turn to the same place. Let me give you, under what I'm calling general counsel from God's relevant word, four statements that you can know for fact, that you can rely on. Four facts, all based upon the scriptures. These facts are not limited to the sin of abortion, but they certainly would include it.

Fact number one: Sin is sin, and we all commit it. The categories are numerous, and the reasons we do these sins are also numerous. However we may define sin, it is missing the mark. It is failing to obey the truth. Sin is sin, and we all commit it. Who doesn't know Romans 3:23? "For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Every person hearing my words right now knows the horror of that verse. We have all sinned, and the tragedy is we will continue to do so until we are in a glorified state in the presence of our Lord in eternity after death.

As long as we have life, breath in our lungs, life on this earth, we will continue to disobey, every one of us. Psalm 14, verses 2 and 3: "The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God. They have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one." If I may paraphrase it, certainly it would have in mind there is no one who continually and without interruption does only good. We all know the experience of failure and wrong and disobedience.

And it is long-term in our lives. Psalm number 58, verse 3: We've been at it all our lives. "The wicked are estranged from the womb. These who speak lies go astray from birth." I hold our precious little grandchildren in my arms, and I look into their adorable, cupid-like faces, and I remind myself each one is a little sinner. As a grandfather, I find it hard to believe until we babysit, and then I know each one has his or her own strong will behind that adorable face and that precious life is a nature that has gone astray from the womb from which they were born. We all sin. We have, we do, we continue to. Sin is sin, and we've all committed it.

Fact number two: God is grieved, but never surprised or shocked by our disobedience. God is grieved, but he is never surprised or shocked by our disobedience. Same book, Psalm 103 this time, go a little further into a great Psalm of David. And aren't we grateful for his pen? Aren't we thankful he didn't stop writing though he had failed God horribly in the most scandalous kind of sin of his day? Psalm 103, he knew whereof he wrote when he said this in verse 12 through verse 14.

"As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him. For he himself knows our frame. He is mindful that we are but dust." When he holds us in his arms and looks into our faces and sees our tears of repentance, regret, sadness, and sorrow, he understands. He sees behind the beauty of our gifts and of our lives and he acknowledges the sins.

He hears our confessions. And without once winking at our sins or passing them off glibly, he understands our frame. He remembers we are mere dust. I've often thought of the contrast there is in gifted, great lives. We hear beautiful music from talented and capable people who study for years and can play such soothing melodies or sing as well. And it is easy to forget that within those very same lives rest the same sewage of depravity.

And pouring forth from any one of those gifted lives can come the most heinous crimes and acts of passion. In fact, the very night when we are moved in ecstasy in worship with their songs, that same night, the same musicians can be caught in the worst kind of scandalous sins. God understands that. He is grieved, but he is never shocked and he is never surprised.

When I read this passage of our Father here who has compassion on his children, I thought of that great section out of Hebrews 12. Will you turn there? Hebrews 12 and verse 5 through verse 11. Just a further word from scripture on God's dealing with us through an understanding. Hebrews 12 and verse 5: "You have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, 'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him.'"

Now watch this. This is the reason you don't regard it lightly. "For those whom the Lord loves he disciplines, and he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons." In other words, the mark of a true father with a true son, the mark of love is that there must be discipline at times.

Disobedience brings it to pass or necessitates it. We had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. The discipline of God's heavy hand upon us, who doesn't remember it? Who hasn't felt it? Who hasn't turned on his bed through the night, sleepless, struggling, sad over wrong that has been done, wrestling with the guilt that comes from the conviction of the Holy Spirit in the life of his God's people?

Who doesn't know that? It's miserable. Verse 11: "All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful." Now, that is the understatement of the New Testament. "But sorrowful, yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness." I call this heeding God's reproof. How wise when we are suddenly seized with the realization of why God has done this, that we might acknowledge the wrong, deal directly with him and with whomever we have hurt in the process so that we might know that peaceful fruit of righteousness. It is one of the ways God's children mature, and there is no shortcut. Sin is sin, and when it happens, God is grieved.

Fact number three: Some sins incur greater consequences than others. Some sins are private, unknown, you deal with them, they impact no one else. Other sins are public and become known, and they impact many.

Bill Meyer: You’re listening to Insight for Living. Chuck Swindoll is midway through a message titled “Abortion . . . after the Fact.” It’s just one of four studies in the mini-series called The Sanctity of Life. If you found yourself resonating with Chuck’s message today, we’d love to send you a helpful resource. It’s a Bible companion book called The Sanctity of Life. Life is precious because it’s sacred. God designed it that way. In fact, Jesus said he came so we could live life to the fullest.

But ask anyone who’s had an abortion or whose family has been shattered by adultery, and they’ll tell you how empty life can feel when God’s design gets violated. That’s why our creative team has written this Bible companion on the sanctity of life. It’s thoughtfully designed to be read alongside your Bible, helping you think biblically about God’s gift of life and showing you how to stand strong in a culture that devalues what God declares precious. With careful attention to applying biblical principles rather than simply offering easy answers, this book will help you find the forgiveness and healing that may seem out of reach.

Because God offers hope, always. And he wants to help you rediscover the abundant life that he’s always intended for you. You’re invited to request a copy of the Sanctity of Life Bible companion when you support Insight for Living with a donation. Call us at 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/donate. This Bible teaching ministry started in 1979, and from the very first broadcast, Insight for Living has been sustained by the voluntary donations of grateful listeners like you. And no one makes a bigger difference than our monthly companions.

A monthly companion is someone who agrees to give a contribution every month. We’d love to add you to that team, and you can do it right now by calling 800-772-8888 or just go to insight.org/monthlycompanion. I’m Bill Meyer, urging you to hear Chuck Swindoll’s compassionate message about dealing with the painful aftermath of abortion Friday on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, “Abortion . . . after the Fact,” was copyrighted in 1990, 2000, 2014, and 2024, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2024 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.