Analysis. The news headlines have been bursting with the expected, official overturning of Roe vs. Wade, and the unrest in its wake. But as has been cautioned in a previous IFA article excerpted from desiringgod.org, the battle is far from over. The SCOTUS ruling of last week reverts decisions affecting abortion law to the individual states, and their reactions will vary greatly based on political and demographic make-up.

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Amid the many calls to continue to battle for the abolition of abortion in all 50 states, I want to invite any of you who feel so inclined by the Holy Spirit to join me in prayer for a wholesale change of heart regarding the sanctity of life in America.

Let me explain: Jesus gave a dire warning about what He called “the last days” in Matthew 24:12: ^“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” His statement appears to indicate two underlying currents that drive much of the violence against life, born and unborn, we see unfold around us today: lawlessness and, as its immediate consequence, love growing cold.

Lawlessness is a complete disregard of rules and laws in favor of what we feel we are personally entitled to. The sinful nature inside each of us, wanting to prove to ourselves that we are God, drives us to rebel against anything that we feel restricts us. Just about the entire Old Testament is about how following laws to make us acceptable to God in our own strength does not work. According to the Apostle Paul, it could not make a person righteous. The entire purpose of the Mosaic law was to expose sin (See Romans 7:7-25, Galatians 3:19-29) and the need for a permanent and more effective way of dealing with it. Ultimately, lawlessness ensues when people put themselves above God and others, which subsequently results in love growing cold. Paul paints a picture of what that looks like in 2 Timothy 3:2: “For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.”

As a society, America has been moving away from belief in God and adherence to biblical principles and designs for life. Recent polls suggest that the number of Americans that believe in God is at an all-time low, mirroring a steep decline in church attendance. Alarmingly, the trend to move away from love for God means a trend toward the love of self, and all the characteristics Paul says stem from it. It is not hard to see that they violently tear at the fabric of our society.

I see this shift expressed, among many other things, in the rise of violent crime, the growing disrespect for law and order, and in the reactions on the part of many against the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, ranging from passionate vows to keep fighting to coarse language by celebrities, violent attacks against pro-life advocates and death threats against the Supreme Court.

These things all point to a growing disregard for the sanctity of life in the world – love of life growing cold – from the womb to the tomb. The growth in person-to-person crime means that more and more people erupt into violence against each other without caring whether they live or die. The widespread protests and political vows to protect full access to abortion point to parts of society losing sight of the fact that a fetus is an unborn child that depends on its mother to live. Strangely, under our nation’s current laws, the killer of a pregnant woman can be held liable for double murder, but the pregnant woman herself can choose to kill her own unborn child, and the doctor killing that child cannot be held liable for his actions.

The willful disregard for the sanctity of life worldwide has also led to millions of children that were born being abandoned to a life in the streets without parents, home, or education (an estimated 120 million), to child labor (an estimated 160 million), and even sex trafficking (an estimated 10 million). How God must grieve over the callousness of man regarding the world’s most vulnerable, both inside and outside the womb.

With this growing shift in the God-given attitude toward life that humans are supposed to have, abortion isn’t going to go away because the laws in many states will change and restrict or outlaw it. We know this from the institution of criminal law. Despite some of the toughest laws in the world against violent crime, the crime rates keep rising rapidly.

All this brings me back to praying for a change of heart regarding the sanctity of life from the womb to the tomb that is needed in America, and, for that matter, around the world.

Essentially, what I am asking for is that we turn the principles Paul used to explain law versus grace into prayer. He states that laws expose and restrain sin and that the only permanent solution to sin, including its disregard for the sanctity of human life, is to repent and enter into a relationship with Christ whereby we are born from above. The Holy Spirit then begins the process of working in us to will and act according to His pleasure as we submit to Him (Philippians 2:13). The reason why born-again Christians are pro-life is that they see, believe, and act out of God’s design for human life.

So, along with praying for our governments to be given wisdom from above and pass laws that will both expose and restrain sin, let us also pray for God to move powerfully throughout the U.S. to open society’s eyes to the horror of negating the sanctity of life, especially that of the vulnerable, both inside and outside the womb, and to let the Holy Spirit’s conviction of sin (John 16:8) drive people back to repentance and surrender to Christ, who alone can change our hardening human hearts.

“Father in heaven, from Whom every family on earth derives its name, and Who fashions every child in its mother’s womb, we unite in prayer before You to move powerfully in the hearts of the American people, and nations around the world, to see how You view life, to realize how far we have been straying from Your design for life, and to return to You in heartfelt repentance and cries for change. We need Your unlimited grace and power to turn hearts back to You, away from the lies regarding life that sin and Satan have fanned into flame, and back to wholehearted agreement with Your purposes and love for life. We have faith that the more people return to You, the fewer abortions there will be, the more violent crime will drop, and the more abandoned and misused children will be set free and cared for. In that faith, we pray for a widespread and radical change of heart – a desire for Your kingdom to come and Your will toward life, born and unborn, to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.”

How are you praying against the lawlessness in our nation? Share your thoughts and prayers below.

Author Remco Brommet is a pastor, spiritual growth teacher, and prayer leader with over 40 years’ experience in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the US. Born and raised in the Netherlands and pastoring his first church in Amsterdam, he moved to the US in 1986. He and his wife Jennifer currently live north of Atlanta, GA When not writing books, he blogs and assists his wife as content developer and prayer coordinator for True Identity Ministries. Jennifer and Remco are passionate about bringing people into a deeper relationship with Christ. Photo Credit: Canva.