June 29, 2022
Leadership Notes
I love clean, concise summaries of important things. On Friday, June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court ruled that:
"The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and
Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is
returned to the people and their elected representatives."
In response to this ruling, our prayer time on Sunday, June 26 was focused on giving God thanks for this decision. As part of our reflection, I shared these four Biblical and wise responses {from Costi Hinn} to Roe v Wade being overturned:
1. Praise: God gets the glory!
2. Prayer: The wicked will rage!
3. Prudence: Be wise with words!
4. Perspective: Good fight continues!
I hope, in the words that follow, not to violate the spirit and principle of #3, but I trust your forbearance if I do. What I treasure more than anything else following this ruling is that we are a Pro-Life Church in a Pro-Life Denomination. Can you be a Christian church and, as strangers living in a strange land, not be Pro-Life? The sanctity of life is essential to who we are.
Sometimes the Bible says something significant without saying something specific. Great is God's faithfulness. Who was the first human being to recognize the deity of Jesus Christ? It was the unborn child, John the Baptist, in Luke 1:41. He recognized who Jesus was when Jesus was in his mother's womb, in the first trimester. What a life-affirming truth.
Times like these give us a glimpse into people's hearts. How do you really know a person? One way is by how they respond when things don't go their way, or turn out how they wanted or planned, or conflict with their long-held ideology. We've witnessed a lot of that already. My hunch is it's only going to get worse. "Outraged leftists" is an understatement. We are seeing Moloch's rage played out on the nightly news. Demons will continue to roar. It'll be interesting to see how Biden provides leadership through all this.
For us, as devoted followers of Jesus Christ, there is great joy in our hearts. This is a positive step forward to saving more babies lives. We continue to resonate with the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. Those are attitudes of the heart that are not evident in the raging words and deeds of the pro-abortion death cult in this country. Embracing life, we will continue to support ministries such as the Care Pregnancy Center of Adrian. The CPC is such a beautiful place.
Over the weekend, the United States Attorney General stated that, "The Justice Department will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom…" In other words, to ensure that abortions are performed, without restriction {which means up to the point of delivery}. Interesting how protecting life runs one-way. Depending on the state, approximately 75-92% of all abortions are performed because the woman didn't want to be pregnant. And last year, almost one million babies were killed in this gruesome procedure. And so, devoted followers of Jesus Christ rejoiced when a dent was put in the unborn death cult.
But, as Costi Hinn reminds us, the hard work continues. Did you know that, prior to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision, there were almost as many legal abortions as there were live births in the state of New York? The legislative battle will return to the states, where it should have been all along. The true Body of Christ will remain a force for the sanctity of life.
As turmoil, tumult, and trauma rage around us, remember this from Hebrews 13:8:
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever."
Never forget, it is idolatrous to say one does not want to be on the wrong side of history. For us, we never want to be on the wrong side of God's Word. So we know that no matter what happens to us or around us, as long as we remain in Christ Jesus, all is well. All is well. That's why we never give up sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. It is Christ, and Christ alone who rescues lost people from this sin-sick world.
Did you know that prior to the June 24, 2022 ruling, the United States was only one of seven countries allowing elective abortion after twenty weeks? That is grotesque and barbarous. And yet some people rage against any limits on the scope and scale of abortions in this country. What we've been studying in The Book of Revelation speaks to this.
As life is restored, one step at a time, brace for more rage. As Revelation 9:20-21 reminded us, "The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts." We wonder, why is this?
Can you imagine being upset that innocent babies with beating hearts cannot be as easily and efficiently destroyed as they used to be? A wise person once told me that people who have been totally invested in a lie will do anything to protect that lie. The Bible calls disinvesting from the lie repentance. Without any doubt, as we're seeing played out in cities across this great country of ours, unfettered radical liberalism leads to extreme anger, symptoms of mental instability, perversion, confusion, and self-destruction. You see it in the faces and hear it in the voices. We are moving toward the normalization of
emotional/ psychological/spiritual unbalance. As someone recently observed, what we are witnessing are the actions of feral people. Again, Revelation 9:21.
R.C. Sproul once said, "A god who is all love, all grace, all mercy, no sovereignty, no justice, no holiness, and no wrath is an idol." The simple truth is, I tremble at the knowledge of God's justice. Ultimately, I won't have a Supreme Court to answer to, or elected officials, or an ideological movement, but I will stand before God. Did I defend the rights of the most vulnerable among us? Upon what ground did I stand?
Finally, getting back to Hinn's fourth point, the response to the June 24, 2022 Supreme Court decision is showing the reality that evangelicals are now a small remnant, giving way to the prevailing voice of progressive theology and thought. And that's okay, because the true church has always stood for what is good and right and just in the midst of loud voices asserting their rebellion against the sovereignty of God. So, of course the pro-life work goes on, now state by state. We will continue to fight for the right-to-life of all innocent human beings.
And now, your Moments of Spurgeon:
"Whether dying young or old, whether departing after long
service of Christ, or dying immediately after conversion as with
the thief, of all the saints shall it be said in the words of the text,
'They shall see his face.' What more can apostles and martyrs
enjoy?"
"The rule that God will punish the ungodly is without exception;
the rule that all who are out of Christ shall perish is a rule without
exception; and the rule that all who are in Christ shall be saved is
also without an exception."
With Much Love and Affection,
Richard
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