As we approach the 2016 election the number of abortions since abortion was legalized in America through Roe v. Wade will hit 60 million. 60 million is a huge number and one that is almost too large for us to comprehend. I want to help you picture the number 60 million and put abortion practices into perspective. Without a picture, we will never be passionately motivated and moved to put a stop to this genocide.

60 million is 10 times the number of Jews killed by Hitler in the Holocaust during World War II.

60 million is 65 % of Generation Y the Millennial generation and 78 % of the Baby Boomer Generation. It is also 18 million more than the entire population of Generation X. When we put it into perspective one thing is clear abortion has truly created a “lost generation.”

60 million is equal to the entire population of our 87 largest cities from New York all the way down to cities the size of Winston-Salem, N.C.

60 million is 400 times as many people as died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the A-Bombs were dropped.

For those who don’t like comparing abortion to the A-Bomb let’s compare it to 9/11 where 3000 innocent lives were taken when terrorists struck America. 60 million abortions are equivalent to 20,000 9/11’s!

What if we compare it to the battle deaths suffered by our military during World War II, where we suffered 291,557 battle deaths in that war? The abortion toll is 200 times that number.

We have aborted 30% of our entire younger generation, Generation X, Y and Z yet we still have pro-abortion politicians who think 60 million abortions are not nearly enough. They regularly defend federal funding for abortion and insist on subsidizing Planned Parenthood to the tune of $550 million a year which is roughly $1600 for every abortion Planned Parenthood performs. In this presidential election, one of the questions that frequently comes up in regard to the two major candidates seeking the presidency is this: “Is this the best America has to choose from?” Let’s face it we have two options, crazy and crooked! But a question that is not being asked today is, “What if we have aborted the next great leader?” Choice always comes with a cost, demanding our rights can have a devastating impact on what is right. What if we are reaping the results of our rights? Let’s face it abortion is far more dangerous than going to war. One of the effects of abortion that our nation is dealing with today, yet few seem to be talking about, is the echo effect. There is a drastic decline in the number of young women in their child-bearing years, a direct consequence of 60 million abortions. The babies aborted 20 to 40 years ago are simply not around to give birth to a new generation. Right now that 20-40 age group are in their peak child-bearing years, but because of abortion 30 million of them, 36% have been lost. This has resulted in 1.4 million reduced births. If there had not been those abortions a generation ago, births in 2014 would have been 35% higher. The problem with aggressive population control measures is that they don’t just impact the immediate, they echo down through the centuries. They not only remove a massive chunk of one generation from being born, but they also eliminate future children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. It results in a steady decline in new births, a trend that could last for years and one that can trigger a population death spiral. The Chinese government has shown it is alert to this problem by abruptly dropping its failed 1-child, forced abortion policy. But China’s new 2 children per family policy is too little too late and will not be enough to offset the huge population drop they will experience as their massive older population dies off. The vital factor China’s Communist planners ignored is the generational or “echo” effect of all those abortions. Why is no one talking about the effect 400 million missing people will have on the Chinese economy. It’s simple statistics when you abort 400 million people, they’re simply not going to be around to birth the next generation. China’s population will shrink and that deficit will echo down the centuries. That’s why it took Europe 250 years to recover from the 50 million people it lost during the famous Black Death in 1347.The bad news is that this is what is happening here, abortion is like the new Black Death. Just in the last 9 years, since 2007, U.S. birth rates have fallen by 1.7% a year. This is the first sign that we have started to feel the echo effect of those 60 million abortions. It will not be long before deaths in the US exceed births and America follows the same path as Europe, a declining population in a declining civilization. Unless, by some miracle, we reverse course we will be entering a new demographic free fall. The colossal mistake made by the U.S. Supreme Court is that they totally ignored the inevitable long-term consequences of Roe v. Wade. Swayed by the population control ideologues, they dismissed the founding fathers’ concern for “securing the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.” They forgot that “posterity” has everything to do with the American future. America needs to recognize that without healthy families you will not have healthy communities, and without healthy communities, you will not have a healthy country. If the church is going to be a vital force in society then there must be a renewed focus on the family as the most important conduit for traditional Christian values from one generation to the next. But this population crisis is really a crisis within a crisis. The death of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia has left an opening on the bench and if a pro-life constitutional conservative does not succeed Scalia, the future of the country with regard to our long-term population crisis could be in serious trouble. Added to that Justices Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are all approaching or already over 80. Odds are that their successors will most likely be named by the next president, and could be around for another 25 to 30 years. If we end up with a court that continues to sustain Roe v. Wade it will be fatal to our future. It has been said that whoever wins this presidential election will almost certainly determine whether America has a future at all. So as you vote remember that this is not a time to retreat into apathy or fall victim to what is popular, but to be courageous, to follow your faith and stand for the values our Founders fought and died for. As Thomas Paine wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated”

Today we are tempted to look to politic power as the answer to our problems but this is not a new phenomenon. 2000 years ago the people in Jesus day also looked to political power as the main means of solving their problems. In the story of the Feeding of the 5,000 in John 6, we tend to focus on the miracle of the Messiah as well we should, but what we often miss is the response of the people. Verses 14-15 reveal their idolatrous thinking: “14 When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!” 15 When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself.” Their expectations centered around a political prophet, they were not looking for the Lord they were looking to law as the answer. While those that Jesus ministered to recognize his power they were governed by a sense of utility that redefines what they thought his messiahship should be. Their idea of messianic power is more in line with a world view than the Words and stands in sharp contrast, to the nature of the Kingdom that Jesus brings, and contrary to the kind of King he is. It is their desire of using Jesus to bring in the kingdom that they want that leads to their idolatrous ideology. For those of us that call ourselves Christians one of the questions we need to ask ourselves is, which kingdom are we living for, an earthly kingdom or an eternal one? The crowd saw the sign that Jesus did and responded by trying to “make him king by force.” The theology of the crowd was not scripturally based but self-serving; they reasoned that if this man had the power to feed that many people in the wilderness, then he had the power to rule over Rome. They were looking to Jesus as a Political Messiah with political power, and they missed the Prince of Peace. Many of us do the same thing today we try to force Jesus to fit our political persuasion but notice Jesus’ response in verse 15: “When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself.” When we try to force the Messiah to fit into our mold we forfeit not just His power but His presence. The Kingdom that Jesus came to inaugurate did not come by means of political power. We may be tempted to look down on the crowd for their idolatrous theology but remember the crowd was not alone in their thinking, the disciples were also distracted by political power. Peter displayed this same worldly theology when he willing used physical force to bring in the kingdom of God by striking “the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear” with a sword, John 18:10. Much to her disgrace throughout history the church has been willing to use not only swords, but bombs and bullets to eliminate those that Jesus came to save. Again we see the same response from the Redeemer, Jesus will have none of it: “Put your sword back into its sheath. Shall I not drink from the cup of suffering the Father has given me?” John 18:11, and in Matthew 26:52 he added “Those who use the sword will die by the sword.” In Luke 22:51 we discover that Jesus not only reprimanded Peter for using His power to hurt but turned around and used his power to heal: “But Jesus said, “No more of this.” And he touched the man’s ear and healed him.” When Jesus picks Malchus’ bloody ear off the ground and put it back on his head the disciples are sure that Jesus’ political philosophy is unrelated to God’s Kingdom. It is here that those who supported Jesus based on their belief that He would overthrow Rome fled from him. You see a Messiah who heals the enemy cannot be their Messiah. When our wants clash with His Will one of two things will happen, either Jesus will leave or we will walk away from Him. It is important to note that this is Jesus’ last recorded miracle prior to His resurrection. Jesus used His power not for political gain but to serve and save. Peter was not the only disciple with a politically perverted perspective, James and John had the same theology in Luke 9:53-55, where they want to call down fire from heaven upon the Samaritans who do not welcome Jesus into their village, “53 But the people of the village did not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. 54 When James and John saw this, they said to Jesus, “Lord, should we call down fire from heaven to burn them up?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them” Again we see Jesus rebuking His disciples, how sad that Jesus had to tell them that the Son of Man did not come to kill people but to save them. James and John were willing to use supernatural force to steamroll people in the name of Jesus. What is amazing about these two accounts is that they come toward the end of Jesus public ministry shortly before He was crucified on the cross. The disciples had walked with Jesus for three years, they had heard his heart and yet their wants still outweighed His will. Instead of looking to Jesus as the solution to sin, they looked to him as the solution to their wants. What is amazing is that the first one to acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God after his death was the Roman centurion, a member of the occupation army, the ones the Messiah was supposed to eliminate. Jesus healed the servant of the High Priest and saves the Roman soldier. In John 18:36 He told Pilate that his “kingdom was not of this world. If it was, my servants would fight.” Peter, James and John were all fighting for the wrong kingdom. There idolatry was redefining sonship based on their political preference, trying to make Jesus into the messiah that they wanted. Many Christians today are making the same mistake, trying to use Jesus to create the kingdom they want, as opposed to being disciples in the Kingdom Jesus initiated. Sadly today instead of being committed to the cause of Christ many Christians have become converts of CNN or followers of Fox news. We seem to have forgotten that Jesus didn’t die on the cross to save a country he came to save souls. I think that one of the reasons the world rejected Jesus was because the way God gets things done looks weak to the world. Which makes me wonder what kind of power does the church value? Today we seem to be more enamored with worldly power than Jesus’ power. I wonder if that is why we are so worried and worked up over the election. We need to remember that it was a handful of faithful disciples living under Roman rule but trusting in God’s power that changed the world. What about you what power are you trusting in, political power or the power of the Prince?