Category: Life Issues

Posted on

Exhortation: Sanctity of Life Sunday

This morning we have baby bottles available for you to take home. For many American Churches this is Sanctity of Life Sunday. One tangible way of fighting for the un- born is to help financially those who are gifted in counseling young mothers considering abortion, and who are capable in providing care for those young mothers who at times are clueless as to what to do.

The session of Providence hopes that you will be able to add your change to that bottle, and by doing so also teaching others the value of all life. God is the God of life. He values life. He cares about life. He is the Preserver of life. This God sees the complexity of life, and He declares it to be valuable, precious, and worthy. A life in the womb is a living soul; a person.

I was pleased to hear that Pensacola no longer has a functioning abortion clinic. This is a great victory for this city. We hope with many others that Florida and every other state in this country will recognize the biblical truth that the Creator has established an unalterable law. And this law dictates that the unborn is fearfully and wonderfully made.

The Bible says that judgment begins in the house of God, so let us not be guilty of failing to defend life at all times, and in all places. It is interesting that churches that have abandoned the orthodox gospel began not by an outright denial of the creeds, but an outright denial of when life begins. May God be gracious to His Church and may she never falter in her prophetic message.

Let us pray:

O heavenly Father, strengthen us against the mounting forces of anti-life; enlighten those who walk in this deadly way that they may see the enormity of their sin and return to the generous observance of the divine law. We pray, too, for mothers, that they may prize the great privilege of motherhood; and that they may bring up their children in the holy love and fear of God, thus saving their own immortal souls and furthering the honor and glory of their Maker. Through Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Posted on

Abortion and Roe v. Wade

Schaeffer and Koop in Whatever Happened to the Human Race? said: 

 Let it never be said by historians in the latter days of this century that—after the Supreme Court decided on abortion in 1973 and the practice of infanticide began—there was no outcry from the medical profession….Let it never be said that the extermination program for various categories of our citizens could never have come about if the physicians of this country had stood for the moral integrity that recognizes the worth of every human life….All Christians know why people are different and have value as unique individuals—sick or well, young or old.  People are unique because they are made in the image of God.  What has happened to the human race?  Why are we afraid of being people, of being human?  Of enjoying the greatest blessings that life can bring—being alive and being people of love, tenderness, gentleness, care, and concern? It is vital that we put first, not economics or efficiency charts and plans, but being  people—real flesh-and-blood people.  We are not to be materialistic robots who think and act like machines and will even kill to maintain their lifestyles.

{Quoted in Ron Paul, Abortion and Liberty, pg. 36}

Posted on

Childermas; The Feast of the Holy Innocents

Triumph of the Innocents, by William Holman Hunt, 1883-4On this day we solemnize the innocent who have died at the hands of tyrants (Herod the Great) and through the barbaric practice of abortion. George Grant summarizes this day:

It has always been the focus of the Christian’s commitment to protect and preserve the sanctity of human life—thus serving as a prophetic warning against the practitioners of abandonment and infanticide in the age of antiquity, oblacy and pessiary in the medieval epoch, and abortion and euthanasia in these modern times.  Generally set aside as a day of prayer, it culminates with a declaration of the covenant community’s unflinching commitment to the innocents who are unable to protect themselves.

Prayer:

Let us pray. O Lord Jesus Christ, once Thou embraced and placed Thy hands upon the little children who came to Thee, and said: “Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and their angels always see the face of my Father!” Look now with fatherly eyes on the innocence of these children and their parents’ devotion, and bless them this day through our prayers.

Posted on

Pat Robertson, Alzheimer’s and Divorce

The controversial and often foolish 700 Club Leader, Pat Robertson, is at it again. According to the Huffington Post, Robertson was asked “what advice a man should give to a friend who began seeing another woman after his wife started suffering from the incurable neurological disorder.” He responded with these words:

“I know it sounds cruel, but if he’s going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her…”

Asked later about what “’til death do us part” meant, Robertson responded by saying that Alzheimer is a form of death.

His justification is utterly foolish and un-biblical. A form of death is not death. A wise observer asked the logical question:

Would this also then apply to a spouse whose spouse has say terminal cancer or some other terminal disease?

What about the spouse of a stroke victim where the stroke victim loses all mobility and speech but may live for decades after the stroke? Wouldn’t that be a “kind of death”?

As a pastor who ministers on Sunday afternoons to the elderly–including a pianist who has Alzheimer’s– I am shocked to see this type of un-christian assessment from a christian leader. The Christian view of life is best summarized by John Stonestreet when he writes: “No one loses the image of God, even if they no longer know it.”

Posted on

Nancy Pearcey on Abortion and Science

In her fine article Why Pro-Abortion is Anti -Science, Pearcey says the following:

In the past, abortion supporters simply denied that the fetus is human: “It’s just a blob of tissue.” Today, however, due to advances in genetics and DNA, virtually no ethicist denies that the fetus is human — biologically, genetically, physiologically human. Even the arch-radical Peter Singer acknowledges that “the life of a human organism begins at conception.”

Posted on

Exhortation: Life and Justice

Brothers and Sisters, there are approximately 3,500 abortions a day in this country; about 1.3 million a year. The Psalmist writes: For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

There are no civil liberties when it comes to God’s ability to search you out. God is the One who forms and puts us together, so He and He alone has the right to declare and define life. And how does God speak of life? The Psalmist speaks in the most intimate terms: “Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. 5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it.” Continue reading “Exhortation: Life and Justice”

Posted on

One Key Issue on Abortion

Greg Koukl writes:

Abortion involves killing and discarding something that’s alive. Whether it’s right or not to take the life of any living being depends entirely upon the answer to one question: What kind of being is it? The answer one gives is pivotal, the deciding element that trumps all other considerations.

Let me put the issue plainly. If the unborn is not a human person, no justification for abortion is necessary. However, if the unborn is a human person, no justification for abortion is adequate.

Posted on

Ministering to the Dying this Christmas…

CREC minister Toby Sumpter reflects on their labor to the dying this Christmas:

I don’t know her name, but she is barely alive in the shrunken shell of the body God gave her. She lays under blankets and peers out of heavy eyelids in sunken sockets, belabored coughs slowly scrape her ancient throat. I smile and say hello. Her eyes flutter toward my voice. She leans her head slowly toward me. My one year old daughter is where her eyes rest. She doesn’t saying anything, and I cannot even say that I see a change of expression. But she cannot take her eyes off of my daughter like my daughter cannot take her eyes off of her. Death meet Life. Beginning meet End.

Read the Rest…