So this is something they've only discovered, recently: that the child in the womb is aware of spiritual influences; but it's written in the Bible 2000 years ago. So children in the womb are aware of the environment around them. They're aware of the presence of God; they're aware of the mother and what she feels; they're aware of the father; they're aware of the environment.
Now the reason I've taken a bit of time to share these things, is because I want to talk about the impact when an abortion takes place. The Bible's very clear, when we look from one end to the other, that the devil is hostile to children. From the book of Genesis (Genesis 3:15) it says the devil is hostile to children, because of a promise God made: that through children being born out of women, a saviour would be born.
So when we look right through Bible history, we find demonic attacks on the child - either in the womb, or just born. In the days of Exodus, just before there was a great deliverance, all the male children under two were killed. In the days after King David, Athaliah killed all the royal children but one. In the days of Jesus, the spirit of murder came through Herod, and murdered all the children under two.
The devil has constantly been against children. The womb is an area of conflict. When miscarriages take place, something God intended for good is suddenly stopped. When abortion takes place, the life of a child is taken. Something wrong has happened, and there is a huge impact. I want to talk a little bit about the impact, because as we've prayed for people, we have realised that many people are suffering, but they cannot understand why they were suffering.
The Bible describes a number of reasons why miscarriages take place. But it does lay out this – that God's plan is no miscarriages and that the womb would be fruitful. So when we look at scriptures, we find that miscarriages came because of idolatry. Sometimes they came because of a curse in the family line. Sometimes it was because of incest in the family. Sometimes it was because people were involved in evil spirits.
I won't go into all the scriptures regarding that, but the Bible is very clear that God's intention is that we be productive. So when miscarriages happen, there can be a spiritual cause, or there can be just a natural, physical cause. When we enquired about the last miscarriage, one of my daughters got a word from God that the brain had not formed properly, and that my daughter and her husband had been spared years of grief. Sometimes there's a physical problem, because we live in a fallen world. Sometimes there's a spiritual problem; and sometimes it can be because the mother has made inner vows never to have a child.
Whatever the cause, the result is grief. When a mother carries a child in her womb, and loses the child, there is a deep grief and sense of loss. Men can't easily understand it - that a woman's life is wrapped up with the child, who is drawing life from her body. So when there's a loss, there's a great grief.
I want to focus on the impact of an abortion. Sometimes when we're counselling people, if you don't get to the root of the problem, you can never solve the problem. As I researched this area, I began to find that everywhere, they came up with the same conclusions – in order for a woman to have an abortion, she must somehow distance herself that this is a real person. Either the doctor informs her: it's nothing, and it's just a medical procedure; or because of fear, or difficulties in the physical situation, she just doesn't want to acknowledge what's happening.