ABORTION, SEPT. 11, 2001, AND SOCIAL SECURITY
ABORTION, SEPT. 11, 2001, AND SOCIAL SECURITY
There is nothing in my lifetime that has alarmed our American people the way the events since September 11th have, but I want us to look at this entire affair from another perspective.
Let me ask you this. How alarmed do you believe our people would be, if that same thing, or something very much like it, were to happen every day? Suppose it happened once a day, every day, week after week, and year after year. Do you believe we would ever get used to it? Or do you think we would be absolutely horrified by it? Do you think we could ever get used to the thought of thousands of people being slaughtered on a daily basis? The fact is that the heart of man is so blinded by sin, that people can get used to almost anything, depending on how it is presented. It depends to a very great extent on how the matter is presented by the news media. In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a decision, which said that if an expectant mother wanted to destroy her unborn baby, no state government had the right to interfere. Since 1973, abortionists have destroyed about four thousand unborn babies-unborn human beings-every day. On average, they have destroyed that number of babies every day, day after day, week after week, and year after year. They destroy more lives every day than were killed on the one day of September 11th. By now almost forty million babies have been aborted. Americans take the slaughter of unborn babies in stride, at the same time we are outraged at what happened on September 11th. We have been brainwashed into thinking there is a difference.
They tell us the baby is not human; it is only a fetus. Of course it is a fetus; it is a soon-to-be-born human fetus.
God told Jeremiah, "Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations,"Jeremiah 1:5. God says that unborn fetus was Jeremiah, before it came forth out of the womb; it was not some indefinable something that might possibly someday become Jeremiah.
David said, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,"Psalms 51:5. He says his mother conceived him; she did not conceive something that might possibly someday become David. He was David from the very moment he was conceived. But in 1973, in the Roe v Wade decision, our Supreme Court decided God was wrong. David’s mother did not conceive him; she conceived something that might become David. God did not know Jeremiah before he was born; he knew something that might become Jeremiah. In the first place, it is not the place of the Supreme Court, or any other court, to make law. That is the job of the legislative branch of government. It is the job of the courts to interpret the law. But in 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States took it upon themselves to make law. They laid down the law to the various states, and said every woman has the right to murder her unborn child, or have it murdered, and no state has the right to interfere. It has been 28 years since Roe v Wade, and since that day, about the same number of children has been killed every day as those who were killed on September 11th.
About four thousand unborn babies, unborn human beings, are destroyed every day, and the news media talks as if anybody who is alarmed about it is part of some lunatic fringe.
America has let it happen. For almost three decades we have let it happen.
After people became hardened to the thought of aborting babies, somebody came along with a process called partial birth abortion. In partial birth abortion the abortionist manipulates the baby so it is born feet first. It is delivered all but the head. Then the abortionist uses a scissors-like instrument to punch a hole in the back of the baby’s head. A suction tube is passed through the hole; the baby’s brains are vacuumed out; the skull is crushed; and the baby is delivered dead. It is hard to imagine anything more wicked, anything more uncivilized. That is something you might expect from cannibals and head-hunters, not here in civilized America.
Twice Congress has tried to outlaw the practice, and both times the President vetoed the ban. Those who tried to outlaw the practice could not find enough votes in the United States Senate to override the veto. It is distressing to know that our president, and more than one third of our Senators were convinced partial birth abortion is a good idea, and it ought to have the protection of the law.
I am appalled at the horrible depravity of those men who were willing to fly airliners into the World Trade Center. I am appalled at the depravity of Supreme Court Justices who would legalize the destruction of 40 million babies. And I am appalled at the depravity of United States Senators who advocate vacuuming the brains out of innocent babies.
I realize that many of our people have heard the abortion question debated, until they don’t want to hear any more. Most people have made up their minds, and they had rather drop the subject. But you and I are going to pay the price for all those aborted babies. Our children and grandchildren are going to pay the price, and they are going to pay in ways few people seem to have imagined. At least, I never hear people talking about the high price this nation is already beginning to pay. Long ago, God said, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,"Galatians 6:7. That statement is as true today as it was when it was first written. It is true for individuals, and it is true for nations. I want to look at just one problem abortion is already bringing on this nation. It is a problem whose dimensions our elected leaders seem totally unwilling to discuss.
We constantly hear people talk on television about the condition of Social Security. We are forever being told that Social Security is in trouble. They name various dates when the system will go broke. But I have never yet heard a news commentator who has the nerve to tell us why Social Security is going broke. It should not take a rocket scientist to figure it out; but they don’t dare say it. For years we’ve heard the myth about the Social Security Trust Fund, about the lock box as they like to call it. The fact is, there never has been a lock box. Social Security has always been a pass through system; present wage earners have always supported present retirees. So why is Social Security going broke? Since 1973, when the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v Wade Decision, Americans have aborted babies at the rate of 1.5 million per year. Or to say it another way, we have aborted future wage earners at the rate of some 1.5 million per year. We have done that for 28 years now. That adds up to more than 40 million people-40 million people who will never be in the work force. They will never pay into the Social Security system. By this date, some 10 million of those 40 million people would be in the labor force earning wages, and paying taxes into Social Security. There can be no doubt that Social Security is in trouble; but there is nothing wrong with Social Security that another 10 million wage earners paying into the system would not solve. That is the reason Social Security is going broke; and that is the reason it cannot be fixed.
Millions of wage earners retire out of the labor force-and start collecting checks-every year. And there are some 1.5 million wage earners who do not enter the work force to replace them. Those wage earners are dead. They will never be in the labor force. They will never pay into the system. In another 20 years there will be 40 million wage earners missing from the labor force. Those 40 million people will never pay into the system. You cannot continue any system for long, if you constantly eliminate those people who pay the bills. Our abortionists seem never to have figured that out. In 1935, when Social Security began, there were about 16 wage earners for every retiree. Today the figure is a little better than 2 to 1. The number of retirees continues to rise, and the number of wage earners continues to shrink. At some point the burden becomes an unbearable load for the few people still working. But that is not the entire problem. About the same time there are not enough wage earners to support the system, there will also not be enough working people to support nursing homes either. Both require money; there has to be somebody working to pay the bills.
I know this is alarming, but I’m not going to say, "I don’t want to alarm you." I do want to alarm you. I think that sometimes we preachers get the idea this matter of preaching is a popularity contest. I quit worrying a long time ago about being a popular preacher. I have learned I’m never going to be everybody’s favorite preacher. I am not sure I will ever be anybody’s favorite preacher. But God doesn’t call preachers to run popularity contests. He calls us to preach the truth, and sometimes preaching the truth involves identifying sin and warning against it. But back to the subject at hand. There was a time when people had big families. When Social Security began, it was very common for families to have five or six children; some families had many more. Those children provided most of the security for their parents in their old days.
More than that, most people grew up, lived, and died within a few miles of where they were born. They were related to half the people in the community. They had parents, and children, and brothers, and sisters, and brothers-in-law, and sisters-in-law, and uncles, and aunts, and nieces, and nephews, and cousins, in the neighborhood.
If anybody got in distress, they usually had enough kinfolks in the neighborhood to take care of them. Today, our families are much smaller, and they are scattered all over the country. Most of our people live in large cities and towns. We do not have the support system our parents’ generation had. If we get in distress, we would be hard pressed to find help without looking to some government agency. And abortion is steadily crippling and destroying those agencies.
People are moving away to find work, and our families are scattered all over the country. Can you imagine the cataclysm that is going to face this country when Social Security really does get in trouble?
It is fairly certain there will always be Social Security. After all this time, Congress would not dare to eliminate those monthly checks. They just won’t be big enough to buy anything. When inflation comes back, it will come back with a vengeance, and it will not take long for inflation to eat up those little checks. They will always let you retire, but they will keep pushing the retirement age back, until, before you can start drawing a check, you will likely be too feeble to work anyway. By the time abortion has so crippled Social Security that it cannot do the job, and nursing homes are either full, or out of business, the social explosion that will rock this nation will make the World Trade Center bombing look like a firecracker.
We are already seeing another aspect of the problem. There are only three things the social engineers can do. One, they can lower Social Security benefits. Two, they can push back the retirement age. And three, they can throw open the borders, and invite immigrants to come in to take the jobs, earn the wages, and pay the taxes.
If Social Security is going to survive, in any form, somebody will have to fill the jobs, and pay the taxes. Those taxes will never be paid by those people who have been aborted. In spite of all the protests to the contrary, our borders are already being quietly opened; immigrants are already fanning out across the nation.