Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Men Are Called To Be Warriors for Life


"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can understand it? I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.”
- Jeremiah 17:9-10


I spoke to a group of men this week about watching the clip of New York lawmakers in thunderous applause over their having legalized baby killing. Under the new law, the mother gets to decide if the child is a human being. In addition to doctors, nurses, midwives and others are now authorized to do the executions right up to the moment of actual birth and  protections for surviving babies were repealed (thus authorizing infanticide).

Kermit Gosnell ran a Philadelphia abortion clinic for 30 years where he murdered
with impunity thousands of babies, often killing many mothers in the process. Routinely he delivered babies alive and then cut their necks with scissors. The grand jury called him the “butcher of women.” ABC News labeled him America’s biggest serial killer. He’s serving life without parole.

Gosnell always maintained his innocence saying he was just ahead of his time, and that someday he would be exonerated. I believe the State of New York just did exonerate him and others states like VA, RI and NM are quickly moving to do the same.

Over the last few years men and women from many Montgomery County MD churches locked arms and mobilized in prayer and action against the notorious late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart. After years of public protests and education, faithful sidewalk counseling of women who visited the clinic and creative engagement with the clinic’s ownership, Carhart was sent packing last year. Men like Pastor Charlie Baile were not silent or passive but went straight to the point of the battle.

As men, one of our crucial God-given responsibilities is to respect, protect and defend the innocent and the most vulnerable among us. We cannot and must not remain silent in the face of the great evil of abortion and infanticide as many of us have in the past. We all need to be awakened from silence in the pulpit and pew as never before to give voice to life. Martin Luther put it this way, “At the point where the battle is fiercest, there the loyalty of the soldier is most tested.” This is our battle test - to be warriors in behalf of life as God calls and equips us to be.

Edmund Burke once observed “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Pray that you will not be counted among the “do nothings. Ask God to link you to battle buddies with whom you can go to war against legalized abortion and infanticide and everything that corrupts the image of God.

Every human being - pre-born or born  -
no matter who they are, no matter where they are, no matter what they have done or have had done to them — possesses intrinsic dignity, value, worth and dignity because we’re all made in the image of God. If we cannot or will not protect and defend the most vulnerable, the least among us, then no one will be safe from those who would marginalize, enslave and destroy anyone who is different from them and their goals, whether for comfort, convenience, power or hatred.

German pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)
initially supported Adolph Hitler but he became one of the founders of the Confessing Church, which opposed the Nazification of German Protestant churches and the incremental purging of the Nazis chosen target groups. He wrote the following poem that has echoed down through the decades and must be re-heard by this generation of believers about what is at stake in the battle for life.

“First they came for the communists and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a communist. 

“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
 

“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

The LORD WILL HAVE THE FINAL WORD:
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks...I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” — Jesus (Matt. 12:34, 36-37)

BY DAVE BROWN, DIRECTOR AND PASTOR, WACMM


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