California Governor Gavin Newsom recently rented billboards in several pro-life states and slathered them with pro-abortion messages inviting pregnant women to get their abortions in California. One billboard in particular, however, stood out, because Newsom ended his pro-abortion message with the words of Jesus in Mark 12:31: “The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Christians were outraged, and rightly so. It’s wrong to promote baby murder, and it’s doubly wrong to twist the words of Christ to promote it. Pastor John MacArthur wrote a letter (which you can find HERE) to Newsom, in which he not only boldly and clearly told the governor that this misuse of Scripture was blasphemy, he pleaded with the governor to consider the eternality of his soul.
The Bible has a lot to say about leaders, good and evil, and the power of God’s Word. Isaiah 10:1-2 says, “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right, that widows may be their spoil, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!”
Note the inference that what makes the decrees iniquitous and writings oppressive is the effects that they have – they turn the needy aside from justice, they rob the poor of their right, and on top of that, they prey on widows and the fatherless.
The abortion lobby does just those things. Their message is aimed at poor, young, husbandless women. Many are fatherless, and for those with fathers, the abortion industry passes laws (like the Parental Notice of Abortion Act), so that parents will never hear of it. Not to mention the boatload of stories where Planned Parenthood has aided and abetted traffickers. Unfortunately, all you have to do is go to a website called Live Action and search ‘traffickers’ to know this.
Isaiah 5:20 says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” Twisting Scripture to call abortion loving is the very fulfillment of this verse. The Bible tells us that God created men and women in His own image (Genesis 1:27), treats the unborn as human and precious (Psalm 139:13-16, Exodus 1:22-25, Luke 1:40-44, etc.), and takes the murder of an image-bearer very seriously (Genesis 9:6). Life is sacred because we are made in the image of God. That’s why the devil is always seeking to destroy it. So much of what’s going on in our culture right now is the result of the age-old spiritual battle. We are not fighting against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12), and this fight for the unborn is really just one more battle in a war that’s lasted since Genesis 3.
A final thought
Ironically, the mere use of Scripture on the billboard proclaims a reality abortion advocates don’t want to face. The verse they used says ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’. But Newsom and his campaign intentionally left off the whole Scripture quote: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” God, the Creator of morality, determines what love is. It’s not something for us to decide based off of what’s culturally cool or our own whims and ideas.
Loving God is why we love our neighbor, and He shows us how in His Word when Christ laid His life down for us. Love involves giving life. Not taking it.
In Isaiah 55:11, the Lord says, “So shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” God’s Word is powerful, even when it’s misused. And we know how this battle ends. Fortunately, God wins.
