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Monday, December 17, 2012
Monday, December 10, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
He Died a Person Not a Casualty
Earlier tonight I preached a Sanctity of Human Life message, "The Sanctity of the Unborn" at New Life Romanian Baptist Church in Hollywood (Abortion was legalized in Romania in December 1989).
After reviewing the Biblical accounts of the personhood of John the Baptist (Luke 1:15), Isaiah (Isaiah 49:1), the Apostle Paul (Galatians 1:15), and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5), I quoted Douglas Erlandson (Abortion: Answering the Arguments),
“God deals with the lives [of these men] from conception to adulthood. The Bible does not appear to recognize a special change in God’s dealings with man at birth. God values each of the above men while he is still in the womb – knows him, chooses him, shapes him.”
I continued,
"...the Biblical evidence is very clear. The unborn are created by God and for God. They were created in His image and they are recognized by God as distinct and unique persons from the moment of conception."
After reviewing the scientific evidence for human life at conception, I said,
"Whether you approach the issue of the personhood of the unborn from a Biblical point of view - and we must - or from a purely scientific or biological perspective, the inescapable conclusion is that life within the womb is human life, a distinct person, worthy of protection."
Later in the evening, I watched this moving video testimony someone had posted on Facebook. His parents CHOSE to be pro-life, allowing this precious PERSON to bless their lives, knowing their child, even if born alive, would have a very brief life. Their baby was five days old when he succumbed to severe medical difficulties...but died loved, cherished and with dignity.
Thomas Paine one of the authors of the Constitution wrote (The Rights of Man),
“...All men are born equal and with equal natural rights, in the same manner as if posterity had been continued by creation instead of generation, the latter being only the mode by which the former is carried forward; and consequently every child born into the world must be considered as deriving its existence from God. The world is as new to him as it was to the first man that existed and his natural right in it is of the same kind.”
You can watch the moving testimony of these parents, who perhaps unknowingly, lived out Thomas Paine's words.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Unintended Consequences
According Ryan
Anderson and Andrew Walker,
"Until
Tuesday, no state had redefined marriage by popular vote. Indeed, 32 out of 32
states that put the issue to a vote defined marriage as a union of a man and a
woman. But in this week’s election, citizens in Maine, Maryland, and Washington
State all passed ballot initiatives redefining marriage to include same-sex
relationships. Meanwhile, citizens in Minnesota failed to pass a constitutional
amendment defining marriage as a man and woman. (It remains so defined,
however, by statutory law.)"
(http://blog.heritage.org/2012/11/08/how-marriage-fared-in-the-2012-election/?utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=culturewatch)
I guess the
silence of America's pulpits regarding marriage and the Word of God paid off
for those who are attempting to change the legal definition of marriage in America.
The failure of
pastors to share the whole counsel of God regarding the Christian and their
civic responsibility also contributed to almost 30 million evangelicals not
voting on November 6, and of those that did over 6 million voted for President
Obama who supported the ballot initiatives in the three states that voted to
legalize same-sex "marriage."
Did your pastor
help prepare you for the issues confronting you and our nation in the November
6 election? Did you hear an exposition and application of the numerous biblical
texts that address the Christian's civic responsibility and the critical moral
issues that were tied to virtually every vote you made?
The prophet
Isaiah said, "Those who guide this people
mislead them, and those who are guided are led astray." (Isaiah 9:16) The unintended consequence of silence?
Silence is a failure
to lead. Can you imagine Moses or Isaiah, Jeremiah or the Apostle Paul,
remaining silent in the face of evil that threatened their people?
The Apostle Paul
instructed the church at Ephesus with these words,
8 For you
were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of
light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness
and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have
nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose
them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in
secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes
visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This
is why it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will
shine on you.” (Ephesians 5;8-14 NIV)
If every pastor
in America had followed the Apostle Paul's admonition in Ephesians 5:8-12,
their people might have been biblically instructed how to
"live as children of light...find out what pleases the
Lord" and "have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness,
rather expose them" at the ballot box on November 6.
Silence can have unintended consequences. I'm not sure the silent preachers of America
anticipated this one.
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