Speak for the Voiceless

And so let me pray for him and pray for the food tonight. We bless you, O Lord, our God, our King. Thank you for Mike. Thank you for calling him, Lord, to give us a message to encourage us, motivate us, Lord, to be the best that we can be, that we can put our hope and trust in you and each other to prepare for this football season. Bless this food tonight when we finally get to fellowship and eat together.

We pray all this in Jesus' name, everybody said. Amen. Let's encourage Mike. Thank you. I am here on behalf of Providence Church in Mansfield. A couple of the elders from that church are here, and I'm thankful that they would invite me.

It bothers me slightly, although I don't want to change the way Joe's doing things, but it bothers me slightly that I'm going to preach to you, and then you're immediately going to go out and play football, And your mind should be on football practice when you're at football practice. And so there's a concern that when I'm finished, whatever I said is going to be there for a minute, and it's going to go away, you're going to have a different focus, and then you'll forget about it. And so I want to exhort you right now to commit yourself that you're going to think about the things that I tell you tonight, but you'll think about them later.

You need to keep your attention on the thing you're supposed to have your attention on at the time. So I want to present you a scenario before we open up the Word of God. And I want you to think about, in your mind, whether you're a Christian or not right now, how you feel about this situation, what you think about it, what you think would be right or wrong.

I want you to imagine a young family with three small children, a one-year-old, a three-year-old, and a five-year-old. The man comes home from work, tells his wife he lost his job. They're already struggling paycheck to paycheck. They don't know how they're going to survive anyway. And now he finds out he has no income. It's not a good situation.

He has no promises that he would be able to find work anywhere. It's a dire situation. So they sit down. They decide that the best way that they could continue to afford the lifestyle that they're enjoying would be if they had one less child. So they devise a plan. And they pick one of the children.

They anesthetize the child so it will feel no pain at all. Put him to sleep and then kill him. Now their problem is solved. They can live on their savings for as long as they wanted while he looks for a job. I want you to think in your mind, what do you think about that? Do you think that would be an at all valid thing to do?

Do you think that would be in fact evil Maybe you use the word wicked to describe it Hopefully everybody in this room would agree that that would be absolutely unacceptable Even if they could give the child enough drugs so that they could promise that the child would feel no pain, we would all agree that to simply terminate your child in that way would be absolutely wrong. That person would make the news, they would end up going to court, and people would demand that justice be done for this child. But what you might not realize is that this already happens daily in our country.

The only difference is the age of the children in question is that people right now in our country, Legally and with the support of most of the people around them are able to murder their own child that isn't yet born. They're able to decide that their lifestyle will suffer if they keep that child. They're able to take medicines and drugs where they can make themselves feel better about maybe the child not feeling pain.

And then at the end of it all, they're able to terminate their child's life in the womb. The only difference being, it's hardly an outrage in our culture right now, and they certainly wouldn't be taken to court, they wouldn't be prosecuted or tried or anything like that. In Proverbs 31 verse 8, the writer of Proverbs is speaking, I think, to men like you.

I want you to listen to what he says. Open your mouth for those with no voice, for the cause of all the dispossessed. Open your mouth and judge righteously and defend the cause of the poor and needy. I'm standing in a room full of men who are very able-bodied, strong men. Some of you, if we went upstairs and said, let's have a bench press contest, you'd be running to the front to show off your muscles.

And that's a good thing. I hope you tackle a lot of people with your muscles. But God didn't just give you muscles so you can throw the ball, kick the ball, tackle people, push them around, or dunk. God made you men so that you could stand up for the poor and needy, so you could stand up for the voiceless. And so, I want to exhort you again in Proverbs chapter 24, verse 11.

God writes, Let go to verse 1 Those stumbling toward the slaughter I think in the first part of that verse God saying that we to rescue people being led away to death And yes, I just restated exactly what it said because I don't think it's a complicated statement. Who's being led away to death? Well, babies in the womb and plenty of other people in our society are suffering in different ways as well.

Well, but I would argue that there are laws against hurting a lot of people in our society, whereas there are actually laws promoting the murder of infants in the womb. The second part of that verse, restrain those stumbling toward the slaughter, I actually believe is more of a reference to the Christian proclaiming the gospel to people who they themselves are stumbling towards hell. And so the Bible teaches that there's one God, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

He's a trinity. And this God is holy and perfect and righteous and just. And he created man to obey him and to reflect his image. And we have sinned against this holy God. We violated his laws. And in some of your cases, it's hard to imagine that you've sinned.

And I'll just tell you, you have. Some of you are pretty good guys probably, but you're still sinning in your heart when you're not doing all things by faith. When you're not standing up for the poor and needy. When you're not opening your mouth for the voiceless. That's sin when you know what is right to do and you don't do it. When you withhold good from your neighbor to whom it is owed and you don't do it, you're in sin.

But this God who is perfectly just and will punish all sinners in hell for eternity sent his son Jesus into the world. I know you've heard this part, but I'm going to say it again for those who need to. Jesus was born of a virgin. He actually became a human, took on flesh, and he was conceived in the womb of his mother. And while he was in that womb, his cousin praised him from another womb.

And then Jesus lived the perfect life you and I could not live. He suffered, died, and was buried. And He rose again three days later, victorious over sin and death. And what He promises is everyone who comes to Him, He will not cast out. So you come to Jesus by faith that He died on your behalf and that He rose again for you. And you can be granted eternal life.

And it can never be taken away once He grants it to you. And you will one day ascend with him to be glorified in heaven. And no other religion on earth can promise this. Other religions can promise a temporary peace. They can promise a peace that is unattainable by the way that they promise it. But the Christian religion promises perfect peace with the God of peace who loves sinners so much that he was willing to send his own son to die on their behalf And what I would ask you tonight is to repent of your sins and trust Jesus died for you And if you have already done that, then I want you to work out and play football.

And I want you to go to school and do things at school. And I want you to be a part of the society where right now some of you are learning what kind of job you're going to want to do. And you're applying to law school and med school and all the different things that happen and it's all good. There's a lot of really good things you're all doing. We were praying for you before and we're praying these are future leaders of Ohio and the United States and maybe even the world.

We're excited about that. But I also want you to think about the fact that right now while you're young, you've got some strength. And you should spend some of that strength helping others. And I'll tell you, as a 50-year-old man, I was once young and strong. And I wish I had the strength and the stamina to do the work I could do when I was 22 years old.

And now I have a mind that wants to do righteousness. So I'm calling on you to open your mouth for the poor and needy. Think about the fact that right now there are abortion clinics all around this country. There's people able to order pills online and they can just think they might be pregnant and just take pills that promise to wash it all away for them.

And be willing to open your mouth to defend those who cannot defend themselves. And even open your mouth to the people that would perpetrate that kind of crime to tell them about the goodness of God and forgiveness of sins that they can have for even considering murdering a child. So thank you for listening. I hope that you will have a great football practice and I hope you really enjoy the dinner and especially the desserts.

My wife supplied all the desserts so when you like those you can think about how great that was. But most of all I want you to pray about what I've exhorted you about that you would be a difference maker for somebody's life who can't open their mouth for themselves. Let me pray. Father, thank you that your word is always piercing to our heart, able to divide soul from spirit as joint from marrow, and it is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

And so I pray that even tonight you would use your word to change all our hearts, that we would be more righteous than we previously were, that people would come to faith in Christ who have not, and that even starting from this room, changes would be made in this society that make it a better place for people, a place where people can freely proclaim your gospel, and where people can worship you and enjoy the fellowship of the saints. While protecting those who need our protection. And it's in Christ's name I pray.

Amen.