I was supposed to be out of town today, but I stayed home. We needed groceries, so I went out to a local bagel place to get a sandwich for breakfast.
At a table near the one I sat at, a girl that looked to be about 16-18 was meeting with a lady about volunteer opportunities.
I listened in on their conversation, hoping I was guessing wrong.
Everything seemed so friendly on the surface -- about a good cause, the girl's passion, helping people and encouraging more young people from our generation to get involved.
When the lady handed her the paperwork, though, I realized I was right in my fears.
Across the top of the page was written: Planned Parenthood
The girl was encouraged about her passion for the cause, given information about how to keep herself safe from people who disagree with the organization (yeah, like people who love babies are commonly dangerous?!), told about all the exciting opportunities to get involved with -- fundraising parties, educational, etc.
This girl looked so naive. She definitely didn't look like she was out to harm babies or women. She may even be passionate about helping women! But there she was, volunteering for the organization that performs the most abortions in the United States, consistently breaks protective laws nationwide, hides information about possible complications following abortion procedures, lies about the embryo at every stage in its development, and fails to protect young girls suffering abuse from sexual predators.
Most of my friends I grew up with attended public school and had no idea of the truth regarding abortion.
I just keep thinking, maybe if this girl knew the truth in time . . . maybe if we shared the truth more passionately, more lovingly, more boldly, more effectively, just more . . . she'd be volunteering for the pro-life crisis pregnancy center, instead.
If I Were Like A Liberal...
"If I were like a liberal, or a liar like most U.S. politicians, I would say, 'I am personally against killing abortionists, but who am I to impose my morality on others?' But that would be disgusting. If I were a liberal, I would say to pro-choicers, "Let's work together to make abortionist killings rare," but that would be disingenuous. If I were a like a liberal, I would deny the obvious truth, and say Sunday's killing is not murder; it's simply a very late-term abortion. But I am not a liberal, and I have the obligation to follow the standard of truth and integrity presented by Jesus Christ."
Unique
It’s no secret that the majority of Hollywood stars are strong advocates for a woman’s right to choose whether or not she wants to terminate a pregnancy, however former "Sports Illustrated" supermodel-turned-entrepreneur-turned-author Kathy Ireland has gone against the grain of the glitterati and spoken out against abortion.
"My entire life I was pro-choice — who was I to tell another woman what she could or couldn’t do with her body? But when I was 18, I became a Christian and I dove into the medical books, I dove into science," Ireland told Tarts while promoting her insightful new book "Real Solutions for Busy Mom: Your Guide to Success and Sanity."
"What I read was astounding and I learned that at the moment of conception a new life comes into being. The complete genetic blueprint is there, the DNA is determined, the blood type is determined, the sex is determined, the unique set of fingerprints that nobody has had or ever will have is already there."
However Ireland admitted that she did everything she could to avoid becoming a believer in pro-life.
"I called Planned Parenthood and begged them to give me their best argument and all they could come up with that it is really just a clump of cells and if you get it early enough it doesn’t even look like a baby. Well, we’re all clumps of cells and the unborn does not look like a baby the same way the baby does not look like a teenager, a teenager does not look like a senior citizen. That unborn baby looks exactly the way human beings are supposed to look at that stage of development. It doesn’t suddenly become a human being at a certain point in time," Ireland argued. "I’ve also asked leading scientists across our country to please show me some shred of evidence that the unborn is not a human being. I didn’t want to be pro-life, but this is not a woman’s rights issue but a human rights issue."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,518087,00.html
At the moment of conception: "the unique set of fingerprints that nobody has had or ever will have is already there."
Isn't that it terribly sad to consider this with the fact that 50 million unborn children have been killed legally in America alone since 1973!? God forms each child that doesn't live to be born with just as much loving care as He formed each of us. "The complete genetic blueprint is there, the DNA is determined, the blood type is determined, the sex is determined..." -- as must His dreams for that child be.
When will we, as Christians, love enough for abortion to end?
Hope?
"If achieving world peace required torturing a single baby, asks a character in Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, would it be worth it?
The liberalism that Barack Obama seeks to complete answers Dostoyevsky's question with an emphatic yes. What is Obama's abortion-on-demand-forever policy but the building of a modern American way of life upon the graves of tortured babies? And not just the unavenged tears of one baby but millions of them."
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/23/obamas-torture-policy-for-the
'Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last, but that it was essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature -- that baby beating its breast with its fist, for instance -- and to found that edifice on its unavenged tears, would you consent to be the architect on those conditions? Tell me, and tell the truth.'
The liberalism that Barack Obama seeks to complete answers Dostoyevsky's question with an emphatic yes. What is Obama's abortion-on-demand-forever policy but the building of a modern American way of life upon the graves of tortured babies? And not just the unavenged tears of one baby but millions of them."
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/04/23/obamas-torture-policy-for-the
Hardened Hearts
"Perhaps if there were more of that intense distress for souls that leads to tears, we should more frequently see the results we desire. Sometimes it may be that while we are complaining of the hardness of the hearts of those we are seeking to benefit, the hardness of our own hearts and our feeble apprehension of the solemn reality of eternal things may be the true cause of our want of success."
-Hudson Taylor
We all wonder if not outwardly, in our hearts and minds, at the blatantly hard hearts of those around us. How can abortion be legal? How can so many people refuse to believe in God? How can such sin exist leading to such tragedy and loss? How?
A while back, I read a story written by a pastor about how he and his 5-year-old son were following the ups and downs of the recent election. He had recently explained to his son what abortion is. His son liked Barack Obama. One day, this pastor mentioned to his son the fact that Barack Obama is pro-choice. His son burst into tears, heartbroken.
Sometimes I wonder, is it we whose hard hearts are preventing the change we so desire? Imagine if every pastor had the heart of that young boy regarding the things that break God's Heart? Imagine if we did! Seriously, sometimes I wonder if we realize the truth -- sometimes I wonder, do we even care?
Think about what is being done to the children. Think about what will happen to the many people you cross paths with when they come face to face with God and are sentenced to eternity in hell. Think about how sin brings about ruin, about how you know the truth of this, and they do not. Think about the preciousness of each soul -- made in God's Image, formed to know Him heart and soul, fashioned with such loving care that each human being bears the fingerprints of our Creator. Oh, think of it! Would it not make God weep? Should it not make you weep? Were you Him, would you not weep at the callousness of those professing to care who yet do nothing to care?
May God soften our hearts -- no, may God break our hearts, may He rend them until they are pierced through with His Love for the lost! May God cause our ears to hear His cry for them, cause our hearts to beat with His Passion to seek them and find them and save them, cause our souls to be burdened with the eternal weight of our sins of apathy, indifference, cowardice. May God crucify all within us that is not love. Oh God, do not let me continue as I am! Teach me to Love, have mercy and instruct me as to how I should care -- I want to weep with You! Please, do not let me continue as I am.
Sorry, I'm Just Not A Pro-life Activist
Sorry, I'm just not a pro-life activist. I can't stomach the graphic pictures. I don't have the courage to just walk up to someone I don't know and talk to them about an issue like this. I don't like to tell people what's wrong and what's right. I can't take being hated. I couldn't take the way they'd look at me.
I don't know the facts about abortion well enough to defend what I believe, personally. I don't know enough about biology to know when life begins any more than the next person.
I know I'd say something stupid. I know I'd have trouble proving what I said. When I get nervous, my mind goes blank and I have trouble putting my thoughts into words. And I always get nervous when I meet new people -- or even just talk to them on the phone. Sometimes I even get scared explaining my ideas to people I know well.
I don't like going out there and putting myself in tough situations. I don't like confrontations. When people get angry at me, I'm afraid they'll hurt me. I don't enjoy taking risks. None of this is anything I'm good at.
Sorry. I'm just not the pro-life activist type.
But . . . let's put it this way: Would you be willing to risk something to save a child?
Imagine you're walking down the street and you see a house on fire. As you approach, a lady runs up, gasping and sobbing, and grabs you by the arm. "My daughter . . ." she says, then she points towards the house. "Where?" you ask. "Upstairs," she cries, pointing to a window on the second level. The window is above an overhang of the roof. You see a drainpipe along the side of the roof. But . . .
"Sorry, I'm just not athletic," you tell her. You've never climbed a drainpipe to a roof before. You might slip. You'd probably fall. You're just not an athletic, fireman-type, drainpipe-climbing kind of person. A scream from within the house pierces your thoughts. You turn to see the mother's distraught expression. "I'm sorry . . ." you tell her.
Sounds pretty lame, doesn't it?
You see, it doesn't matter what kind of person you are. All that matters is that you care.
I'm not a pro-life activist kind of person. Before almost everything I do, I say, "God, I can't do this!" But in my heart, I know what's right. So nothing else matters. I must do what I can. It doesn't matter what kind of person I am. There is something more important than that. There are children dying. Set your eyes on the Face of your Heavenly Father. See His Love for them. And can't you hear the cry of each soul? As the choice is made, as the pain envelops, it screams, "I want to live!"
Friends, be passionate, be active, do something about what you believe. I didn't know the facts. I had to research them. Being homeschooled, I'd hardly studied biology. So I found articles and books about when life begins and the development of the child in the womb and I pored over them. I don't like reading about abortion. Babies don't like feeling abortion. I don't have the courage to do what's needed. So I step out in faith. I'm not the best at it. But I give it my all.
I'm not the kind of person who does hard things. But I do them anyway. It's not that I enjoy looking foolish. It's not that I like confrontations. It's not that I want to make people angry. It's not that I enjoy feeling incompetent or attempting tasks that make me feel weak, small, untalented. I don't relish tough situations, risk taking, or standing on a platform and being heard. It's not that I like what I do.
I just see and know something more important than all of that. It convicts me in a way I cannot avoid, cannot quiet, cannot forget. And I just care too much to stand by and say, "Sorry . . ."
Friends, you know the truth that abortion kills a living human being. You believe the truth that more than 3,000 innocent lives are being lost daily. It doesn't matter what kind of person you are. Consider what is important. Do you care? What will you do about it?
Each of us can't do everything. But all of us can do something.
Here I Stand
There was a time
my vision blurs, tears fall
there was a time
I recall
there was a time
when children played
in tree-lined streets
'til evening came
a gentle breeze blew
their sweet laughter home
it was
the sweetest sound I've known
there was a time
when two friends
sat by a lake
beneath a grand willow
and while branches swayed
they talked of dreams
and distant days
faraway places
across the rippled water they gazed
there was a time
yes, there was a time
the memories fade
but there was a time
of joy
of love
and freedom
my love
but here I stand
and I look back
and wonder
at a horizon black
at cities ruined
at crumbled walls
at silence where rang a melody
through rolling hills and sacred halls
I wonder at a countryside
once green
at beauty
now weak
at buildings and homes
and churches now scorched
at ash
for all that I see is gray and torn
yet rubble and broken glass
this shattered scene
still echoes
all that used to be
and I remember the days
of gentle sunlight and clear blue skies
I remember nights
slumbering, dreaming
you and I
now
now it is gone
and I wonder
where we went wrong
I wonder
could it have been different
could the children have stayed
I wonder
I beg
my soul pleads
my heart aches to know
might we have remained innocent
"What should be the safest place to live in America -- a mother's womb -- is now the most dangerous place."
-Randy Alcorn
"What we must all learn is that you can't lose a freedom anyplace without losing freedom everyplace.
If you are going to let one segment of society or one area of the country become maligned without insisting that the truth be known, all other segments and areas are subject to similar fates."
-Ronald Reagan
You Are My Strength
This world is a frightening and sometimes painful place. Though I am young, I know this already. I know that it seeks my destruction. It coaxes and tempts me. It hurls its violent threats into my sacred dwelling. Its echoes haunt me in my dreams. It curses and prowls. I hear a storm raging outside the safety I cling to -- a storm of hatred for all that I truly represent. Why, why is life so hard, I begin to ask.
Oh, but I long to live! I long to laugh. I long to hope and dream peaceful dreams and sleep a sweet slumber without fear. Oh, how I long for the good things in life! Just give me a chance! I would love and I would give it my all, had I just the chance to prove I would. I pray you know I would. I pray you know that were you to love me, dear world . . . but no, no . . .
You see, deep in my soul, I know I was made for more. I know I was made for You -- for Your glory, for Your purpose, and, yes, for Your joy.
And You are my strength. How the world beats me down. How the world fires its roar of hatred against me! Yet You reach out to comfort me. You wrap Your Arms around me and You hold me fast to Your Chest. I hear Your sweet, sweet song over me. I know I am Loved. I know I am safe. I truly know You will protect me.
But what of them? Dear God, what of them? There they perish. There they perish -- by the hundreds some moments, by thousands each day, by the millions! They die in mass. They die, and the world does little to mourn their passing. They die, without You, it seems. They die. And what can I do but weep?
Yet I remember something from long ago -- something from my childhood, a story, perhaps. I remember that a Man came, a Man they said was from Galilee. He came and He walked this earth and He Loved and He reached out and He spent Himself, to the last agonizing drop of Blood, for such a world in need as this. Yes, He came, and He cared.
If only He were here. Things would not continue as they are. Children would not be ripped from the womb, not given a chance even to breathe. Orphans would not wander the streets, never finding a pitied gaze. Young men and women the world over would not find themselves crushed heart and soul beneath tyrants who hate their freedom. Yes, if only He were here -- He would make the world a different place.
He walked, He spoke, He Loved . . . how the world needs Him! He took such temptation and pain and loneliness and even torturous death upon Himself, for me. You are my strength, O God. You took my weakness and agony upon Yourself. You made Yourself as good as helpless. You were despised, rejected, spit at, flogged excruciatingly, and crucified upon an old rugged Cross. All this You did, because You Loved me -- that I might be strong; to be my help, to save me.
Here I ponder how this world needs You -- they need You as I did while perishing. Here I ponder this, while I call myself a Christian. I claim to be a member of the Body of Christ. I claim to witness of You. Do I not, by claiming such, offer such hope to the world that You dwell within me, and act or do not act through me? Do I not, attempt it or not, give testimony of You, false or true, with my life!
But if I just talk, if I do not reach out, do I present to the world a God who cares? If a friend told me truth, asked me to warn others of impending danger, and I chose to keep silent with this newfound knowledge, would I not be withholding truth from them? Likewise, if You give me Love, and I choose not to reach out, am I not withholding Your Love from this lost world You seek?
Am I not called to love? Am I not called to share what I have been given, obey the Father, walk as You walked, give as You gave, live as You long to live through me? Am I not called to be their strength, their help, their protector? Can I witness who You are, without doing such? Can I witness who You are, with mere words?
http://cryjusticecryfreedomcryaction.blogspot.com/2008/08/hero.html
Oh, but I long to live! I long to laugh. I long to hope and dream peaceful dreams and sleep a sweet slumber without fear. Oh, how I long for the good things in life! Just give me a chance! I would love and I would give it my all, had I just the chance to prove I would. I pray you know I would. I pray you know that were you to love me, dear world . . . but no, no . . .
You see, deep in my soul, I know I was made for more. I know I was made for You -- for Your glory, for Your purpose, and, yes, for Your joy.
And You are my strength. How the world beats me down. How the world fires its roar of hatred against me! Yet You reach out to comfort me. You wrap Your Arms around me and You hold me fast to Your Chest. I hear Your sweet, sweet song over me. I know I am Loved. I know I am safe. I truly know You will protect me.
But what of them? Dear God, what of them? There they perish. There they perish -- by the hundreds some moments, by thousands each day, by the millions! They die in mass. They die, and the world does little to mourn their passing. They die, without You, it seems. They die. And what can I do but weep?
Yet I remember something from long ago -- something from my childhood, a story, perhaps. I remember that a Man came, a Man they said was from Galilee. He came and He walked this earth and He Loved and He reached out and He spent Himself, to the last agonizing drop of Blood, for such a world in need as this. Yes, He came, and He cared.
If only He were here. Things would not continue as they are. Children would not be ripped from the womb, not given a chance even to breathe. Orphans would not wander the streets, never finding a pitied gaze. Young men and women the world over would not find themselves crushed heart and soul beneath tyrants who hate their freedom. Yes, if only He were here -- He would make the world a different place.
He walked, He spoke, He Loved . . . how the world needs Him! He took such temptation and pain and loneliness and even torturous death upon Himself, for me. You are my strength, O God. You took my weakness and agony upon Yourself. You made Yourself as good as helpless. You were despised, rejected, spit at, flogged excruciatingly, and crucified upon an old rugged Cross. All this You did, because You Loved me -- that I might be strong; to be my help, to save me.
Here I ponder how this world needs You -- they need You as I did while perishing. Here I ponder this, while I call myself a Christian. I claim to be a member of the Body of Christ. I claim to witness of You. Do I not, by claiming such, offer such hope to the world that You dwell within me, and act or do not act through me? Do I not, attempt it or not, give testimony of You, false or true, with my life!
But if I just talk, if I do not reach out, do I present to the world a God who cares? If a friend told me truth, asked me to warn others of impending danger, and I chose to keep silent with this newfound knowledge, would I not be withholding truth from them? Likewise, if You give me Love, and I choose not to reach out, am I not withholding Your Love from this lost world You seek?
Am I not called to love? Am I not called to share what I have been given, obey the Father, walk as You walked, give as You gave, live as You long to live through me? Am I not called to be their strength, their help, their protector? Can I witness who You are, without doing such? Can I witness who You are, with mere words?
http://cryjusticecryfreedomcryaction.blogspot.com/2008/08/hero.html
Even If You Don't
there was a group of eleven teenage boys
who were arrested by the Nazis
for their involvement in the resistance.
One of them was quoted by a local newspaper as saying,
"If you older folk will do nothing,
we will have to do something instead."
Cry out for FREEDOM.
Stand for JUSTICE.
Don't leave it to the children to fight the war.
The Unthinkable
"We all know of the slave labor camps, but for the first time, now we learn of extermination camps."
The words rang in his ears, played over and over again in his mind.
Thousands.
In Poland.
In Germany.
Killed by poison gas?
Could that be true?
I can't believe anything about extermination camps.
But Hitler did say some horrible things about the Jews.
But . . . murdering a whole group of people?
It just can't be true.
It must be wartime propaganda.
Rumors.
They wouldn't kill people like that.
Maybe those kinds of mass killings happened back in history.
But one group of people doing that to another group . . . in these days?
It's just unthinkable."
Imagine hearing, for the first time, about the extermination of the Jews during World War II. Most Americans did not believe it to be true. Would you have? And imagine you did. What would you have said? What would you have done?
Would you have published the truth? Would you have gone to the front lines of battle and risked your life? Would you have sponsored a Jewish family so that they could come to live in safety? What would you have thought? What would you have done?
Would you have told your friends, your neighbors, your pastor, your senator, your congressman, your president? Would you have been a voice for the voiceless? What means would you use and what passion would you have had to speak on behalf of those who could not speak for themselves? What would you have done?
Would you have gone about your day? Would you have gone on with your life? Or would you have stopped. Would you have fallen to your knees in prayer. Would you have wept -- if not with tears, with words. Would your heart and your soul have cried out in despair at the thought of such disregard for beautiful, individual lives each lovingly formed and fashioned in the image of our Creator . . . such disregard that they would be thrown away like rubbish! What would you have felt? What would you have done at such a thought?
And yet, it little matters what you think you would feel. And it little matters what you imagine you would say. And still, it little matters what you wish you would do. All that really matters is: What will you do today?
What will you do today?
"We were tragically mistaken. It was only near the end of the war that we learned that there had indeed been extermination camps -- Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau and Freblinka -- where unspeakable and unthinkable horrors had been committed."
Credit: The Waltons -- Season 8: "The Unthinkable"
Visit Abort73.com today.
So I pray...
Obama's vain beginning
by Alan Keyes
Never forget the difference between good-sounding reasons and good sound reasoning. That was one of the first admonitions I remember hearing from my debate coach in high school.
Barack Obama's address at the high-priced ceremony marking his first day as an occupant of the White House is a masterful symphony of good sounding reasons, filled with allusions to America's founding principles, high ideals and high-minded purposes. Yet in the whole of it, there is not one shred of reasoning based on those principles, not one line that takes true account of their content and deliberately connects it with the view of government he articulates, or the wisps of policy he rhetorically flourishes. He uses words that evoke the founding ideals to give his assertions an aura of legitimacy, but he does not accept them as the starting point for deliberate reasoning that would justify those assertions. He respects their usefulness, not their authority.
Though Obama cleverly exploits the positive emotions still evoked by references to our founding ideals, he speaks without regard for the understanding that justifies those emotions, the logic that transforms them from good feelings to reasonable convictions; from vague hopes to truths which inform our lives and deserve our allegiance; and that we can sustain in the face of great sacrifice, pain and danger, even unto death. Because he refuses to acknowledge the vision of faith and reason actually articulated in our founding documents, his effort to portray the hard work and sacrifices of previous generations falls woefully short, in terms of truth and effectiveness:
Obama's words may or may not be well-intentioned, but because they are not truthful, they miss the mark.
Mark Twain was more honest about the American character when he portrayed Tom Sawyer laboring under the burden of whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence. Twain says that Sawyer "began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied." Not much later, with the shrewdness that would one day make Madison Avenue a byword, Tom helps another boy to see the pleasures of hard work, gets him to finish the whitewashing job, and so makes his escape from Obama's vision of American greatness. Americans are all too human, and human ingenuity often owes more to the desire to expand leisure than to any preference for hard work. America was certainly built by doers and risk takers, but some worked as hard for the main chance and took as many risks in search of the short cut to riches and fame as others did for sturdy love of yeoman toil.
The problem, however, isn't just that in his rhetoric Obama prefers the labor of whitewashing to the riskier short cut of telling the truth. It's that he challenges us to reaffirm the greatness of our nation, when what we desperately need to reaffirm is the heart for God's justice that has redeemed this greatness from evil. This is the heart that leads another Twain character, Huck Finn, to reject the false law that sanctioned slavery in favor of the true justice of respect for decent humanity that God has planted in his heart.
James Madison, known as the father of the Constitution, was right when he said that justice is the aim of government, the aim of civil society: not freedom, not prosperity, but the determination to do what is right, as God enables us to see the right. In his disregard for the vision of justice that shaped the founding of the United States, Obama reveals the shoddy inadequacy of his vision for America, his fanatical commitment to the tawdry and ultimately self-centered materialism that binds and deforms his leftist ideology at its core. Except for this, he would have understood that before power, before prosperity, even before the Constitution framed our national institutions for liberty, America's true greatness was given, by God's Providence, in the moment when the leaders and people of the 13 original states, living in what Europeans then considered a savage, backward wilderness, committed themselves to form an independent nation that derived its identity from their common acknowledgement of the existence and authority of God. So previous generations did not struggle, risk and sacrifice only "for us." They did so for justice, defined by God's will. They did so for liberty, respecting God's law. They did so for all posterity, of which each generation is only a transient expression. They did so for all humanity, constituted by the nature God determines in us and the bonds of right and obligation he established for our common good.
Of course, Obama's address is peppered with words that speak of selflessness, sacrifice, loyalty, honor and the like. But under the sweet melody line of these words we cannot but hear the discordant positions he actually takes: the policies he advocates, the laws he seeks to establish and implement. Political speech is but an element of action. Obama's words, therefore, beg the question: Is his good-sounding speech part of a good, just action? Or is it just good acting, in service to the very spirit of selfish ambition he purports to decry?
If principles and ideals are more than the tools of ambition, there will be a logical relationship between speech and policy, words and actions.
Obama purports to respect our founding documents, yet he means to pursue policies that deny the equal rights of all, starting with the equal right to life of our nascent posterity: the children in the womb, the embryos in the Petri dish, the fully born human beings of God's intention that Obama is willing to see murdered in order to fulfill the intention of their abortion-minded mothers.
Obama purports to encourage responsibility and selfless service, yet stands in the vanguard of the movement that claims the right to sacrifice innocent human lives on the altar of this generation's lust for pleasure and power. He promises huge increases in government spending so that politicians can claim to address today's crises, while they pillage the wealth and hopes of the next and future generations.
Obama purports to respect the sacrifices of those who risk and give their lives for liberty, yet promotes a view of "progress" that relies on concentrating power in the hands of government with no regard for the moral and constitutional discipline needed to preserve the rights of individuals, the authority of parents, the integrity of family; and needed as well to prevent tyranny, including the tyranny of the majority.
He purports to respect the critical role of the people themselves in the development of America's economic strength, yet advocates policies that will destroy the economic self-sufficiency of families, businesses and private associations, making of them all dependent wage slaves or appendages of government power.
Above all, he pays lip service to our founding principles, yet encourages the lying delusion that those principles will be remembered and reliably acted upon without respect for God's authority. America may be a nation in which people with a great variety of beliefs can live in liberty, but America cannot live as a nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition of human natural equality, once the truth of God's Creation has been discarded, the existence of his authority effectively denied. Obama invokes "God's grace upon us." But can a nation benefit from God's grace when the people of the nation refuse to live with minds renewed and hearts transformed by it; when those who, by the receiving of grace, transcend the law yet refuse to stand up boldly and freely to preserve the right intention of law in words and deeds that reflect the commands and example of their Lord? Whatever words he speaks in the service of his power and ambition, Obama has articulated views and pledged himself to policies that resist and reject the renewing influence of grace. Where God commands respect for life, he champions murder of the innocent, and calls it freedom of choice. Where God commands respect for the family, as it reflects and perpetuates his image in our nature, Obama champions its destruction, and calls it tolerance. In his rhetoric Obama uses the name of God, but in his views and politics he stubbornly denies, disregards and rejects God's authority. So I pray for him, that someday he will have the ears to hear the commandment that is also a warning: Thou Shalt not take the Name of the Lord Thy God in vain.
© WorldNetDaily -- January 23, 2009
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=86830
by Alan Keyes
Never forget the difference between good-sounding reasons and good sound reasoning. That was one of the first admonitions I remember hearing from my debate coach in high school.
Barack Obama's address at the high-priced ceremony marking his first day as an occupant of the White House is a masterful symphony of good sounding reasons, filled with allusions to America's founding principles, high ideals and high-minded purposes. Yet in the whole of it, there is not one shred of reasoning based on those principles, not one line that takes true account of their content and deliberately connects it with the view of government he articulates, or the wisps of policy he rhetorically flourishes. He uses words that evoke the founding ideals to give his assertions an aura of legitimacy, but he does not accept them as the starting point for deliberate reasoning that would justify those assertions. He respects their usefulness, not their authority.
Though Obama cleverly exploits the positive emotions still evoked by references to our founding ideals, he speaks without regard for the understanding that justifies those emotions, the logic that transforms them from good feelings to reasonable convictions; from vague hopes to truths which inform our lives and deserve our allegiance; and that we can sustain in the face of great sacrifice, pain and danger, even unto death. Because he refuses to acknowledge the vision of faith and reason actually articulated in our founding documents, his effort to portray the hard work and sacrifices of previous generations falls woefully short, in terms of truth and effectiveness:
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted – for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk takers, the doers, the makers of things – some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path toward prosperity and freedom. For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life. For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth. For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sanh. Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.
Obama's words may or may not be well-intentioned, but because they are not truthful, they miss the mark.
Mark Twain was more honest about the American character when he portrayed Tom Sawyer laboring under the burden of whitewashing Aunt Polly's fence. Twain says that Sawyer "began to think of the fun he had planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied." Not much later, with the shrewdness that would one day make Madison Avenue a byword, Tom helps another boy to see the pleasures of hard work, gets him to finish the whitewashing job, and so makes his escape from Obama's vision of American greatness. Americans are all too human, and human ingenuity often owes more to the desire to expand leisure than to any preference for hard work. America was certainly built by doers and risk takers, but some worked as hard for the main chance and took as many risks in search of the short cut to riches and fame as others did for sturdy love of yeoman toil.
The problem, however, isn't just that in his rhetoric Obama prefers the labor of whitewashing to the riskier short cut of telling the truth. It's that he challenges us to reaffirm the greatness of our nation, when what we desperately need to reaffirm is the heart for God's justice that has redeemed this greatness from evil. This is the heart that leads another Twain character, Huck Finn, to reject the false law that sanctioned slavery in favor of the true justice of respect for decent humanity that God has planted in his heart.
James Madison, known as the father of the Constitution, was right when he said that justice is the aim of government, the aim of civil society: not freedom, not prosperity, but the determination to do what is right, as God enables us to see the right. In his disregard for the vision of justice that shaped the founding of the United States, Obama reveals the shoddy inadequacy of his vision for America, his fanatical commitment to the tawdry and ultimately self-centered materialism that binds and deforms his leftist ideology at its core. Except for this, he would have understood that before power, before prosperity, even before the Constitution framed our national institutions for liberty, America's true greatness was given, by God's Providence, in the moment when the leaders and people of the 13 original states, living in what Europeans then considered a savage, backward wilderness, committed themselves to form an independent nation that derived its identity from their common acknowledgement of the existence and authority of God. So previous generations did not struggle, risk and sacrifice only "for us." They did so for justice, defined by God's will. They did so for liberty, respecting God's law. They did so for all posterity, of which each generation is only a transient expression. They did so for all humanity, constituted by the nature God determines in us and the bonds of right and obligation he established for our common good.
Of course, Obama's address is peppered with words that speak of selflessness, sacrifice, loyalty, honor and the like. But under the sweet melody line of these words we cannot but hear the discordant positions he actually takes: the policies he advocates, the laws he seeks to establish and implement. Political speech is but an element of action. Obama's words, therefore, beg the question: Is his good-sounding speech part of a good, just action? Or is it just good acting, in service to the very spirit of selfish ambition he purports to decry?
If principles and ideals are more than the tools of ambition, there will be a logical relationship between speech and policy, words and actions.
Obama purports to respect our founding documents, yet he means to pursue policies that deny the equal rights of all, starting with the equal right to life of our nascent posterity: the children in the womb, the embryos in the Petri dish, the fully born human beings of God's intention that Obama is willing to see murdered in order to fulfill the intention of their abortion-minded mothers.
Obama purports to encourage responsibility and selfless service, yet stands in the vanguard of the movement that claims the right to sacrifice innocent human lives on the altar of this generation's lust for pleasure and power. He promises huge increases in government spending so that politicians can claim to address today's crises, while they pillage the wealth and hopes of the next and future generations.
Obama purports to respect the sacrifices of those who risk and give their lives for liberty, yet promotes a view of "progress" that relies on concentrating power in the hands of government with no regard for the moral and constitutional discipline needed to preserve the rights of individuals, the authority of parents, the integrity of family; and needed as well to prevent tyranny, including the tyranny of the majority.
He purports to respect the critical role of the people themselves in the development of America's economic strength, yet advocates policies that will destroy the economic self-sufficiency of families, businesses and private associations, making of them all dependent wage slaves or appendages of government power.
Above all, he pays lip service to our founding principles, yet encourages the lying delusion that those principles will be remembered and reliably acted upon without respect for God's authority. America may be a nation in which people with a great variety of beliefs can live in liberty, but America cannot live as a nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition of human natural equality, once the truth of God's Creation has been discarded, the existence of his authority effectively denied. Obama invokes "God's grace upon us." But can a nation benefit from God's grace when the people of the nation refuse to live with minds renewed and hearts transformed by it; when those who, by the receiving of grace, transcend the law yet refuse to stand up boldly and freely to preserve the right intention of law in words and deeds that reflect the commands and example of their Lord? Whatever words he speaks in the service of his power and ambition, Obama has articulated views and pledged himself to policies that resist and reject the renewing influence of grace. Where God commands respect for life, he champions murder of the innocent, and calls it freedom of choice. Where God commands respect for the family, as it reflects and perpetuates his image in our nature, Obama champions its destruction, and calls it tolerance. In his rhetoric Obama uses the name of God, but in his views and politics he stubbornly denies, disregards and rejects God's authority. So I pray for him, that someday he will have the ears to hear the commandment that is also a warning: Thou Shalt not take the Name of the Lord Thy God in vain.
… this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honor me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men.
-Isaiah 29:13
This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
-Matthew 15:8-9
© WorldNetDaily -- January 23, 2009
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?pageId=86830
Already Dreaming?
"By midpregnancy the fetus has begun to explore its own body and environment using its hands. It often holds on to the umbilical cord, and when a thumb approaches its mouth, it will turn and begin to make sucking motions with its lips... The fetus is also using its sense of hearing for orientation. Its most familiar sounds are surely the noises of the mother's digestive system and the swishing from her major blood vessels, but gradually the fetus also begins to perceive the sounds of the mother's world, such as music and the father's voice. The eyes of the fetus are sensitive to light, even though the eyelids are still shut tight..."
-Lennart Nilsson and Lars Hamberger, A Child is Born, 4th edition. New York: Bantum Dell, 2003. p. 141
"Does a fetus see anything? It is known that the eye can sense light as early as the third month of pregnancy. Sometimes when an endoscope is inserted into the amniotic sac, a fetus tries to protect its eyes from the light on the instrument, either by turning away or by using its hands and fingers."
-Lennart Nilsson and Lars Hamberger, A Child is Born, 4th edition. New York: Bantum Dell, 2003. p. 146
"During her odyssey in the womb [a fetus] will smile, recognize her mother's voice and maybe even dream."
-In the Womb, National Geographic, 2005
"One of the many things revealed by the 4D scans is the fact that babies have rapid eye movement sleep. This is a period of sleep when the eyes slicker around behind the eyelids. Later in life, this is an indication of dreaming. This gentle flicker of an eye could be a sign that the fetus, still with a month to go before being born is already dreaming."
-In the Womb, National Geographic, 2005
"Twins, and other multiples, are known for a particular characteristic in utero. Scientists have even witnessed them playing games together... Scientists think their prenatal behavior [carries] over into early childhood."
-In the Womb, National Geographic, 2005
"In the top drawer of my desk, I keep [a picture of my son]. This picture was taken on September 7, 1993, 24 weeks before he was born. The sonogram image is murky, but it reveals clear enough a small head tilted back slightly, and an arm raised up and bent, with the hand pointing back toward the face and the thumb extended out toward the mouth. There is no doubt in my mind that this picture, too, shows [my son] at a very early stage in his physical development. And there is no question that the position I defend in this book entails that it would have been morally permissible to end his life at this point."
-David Noonin, "A Defense of Abortion"
"Never, never will we desist till we . . . extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country."
-William Wilberforce
"When my wife and I visited the Yad Vashim Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, we were most deeply touched by the children's memorial. It has 1500 candles, with mirrors designed to reflect each candle a thousand times, representing the 1.5 million children killed in the Holocaust. We stood in the darkness hearing the names of individual children read one by one.
I was struck by the number, because at the time it was the same number killed by abortion in America each of the previous few years. The fact that most of these children haven't been given names doesn't diminish their worth. I have stood at memorials for the unborn where parents have given names to their children and written them in expressions of love and grief. If we could only hear the names of each of these children whispered to us in the dark, perhaps we would wake up."
-Randy Alcorn, ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments. p. 301
-Lennart Nilsson and Lars Hamberger, A Child is Born, 4th edition. New York: Bantum Dell, 2003. p. 141
"Does a fetus see anything? It is known that the eye can sense light as early as the third month of pregnancy. Sometimes when an endoscope is inserted into the amniotic sac, a fetus tries to protect its eyes from the light on the instrument, either by turning away or by using its hands and fingers."
-Lennart Nilsson and Lars Hamberger, A Child is Born, 4th edition. New York: Bantum Dell, 2003. p. 146
"During her odyssey in the womb [a fetus] will smile, recognize her mother's voice and maybe even dream."
-In the Womb, National Geographic, 2005
"One of the many things revealed by the 4D scans is the fact that babies have rapid eye movement sleep. This is a period of sleep when the eyes slicker around behind the eyelids. Later in life, this is an indication of dreaming. This gentle flicker of an eye could be a sign that the fetus, still with a month to go before being born is already dreaming."
-In the Womb, National Geographic, 2005
"Twins, and other multiples, are known for a particular characteristic in utero. Scientists have even witnessed them playing games together... Scientists think their prenatal behavior [carries] over into early childhood."
-In the Womb, National Geographic, 2005
"In the top drawer of my desk, I keep [a picture of my son]. This picture was taken on September 7, 1993, 24 weeks before he was born. The sonogram image is murky, but it reveals clear enough a small head tilted back slightly, and an arm raised up and bent, with the hand pointing back toward the face and the thumb extended out toward the mouth. There is no doubt in my mind that this picture, too, shows [my son] at a very early stage in his physical development. And there is no question that the position I defend in this book entails that it would have been morally permissible to end his life at this point."
-David Noonin, "A Defense of Abortion"
"Never, never will we desist till we . . . extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country."
-William Wilberforce
"When my wife and I visited the Yad Vashim Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, we were most deeply touched by the children's memorial. It has 1500 candles, with mirrors designed to reflect each candle a thousand times, representing the 1.5 million children killed in the Holocaust. We stood in the darkness hearing the names of individual children read one by one.
I was struck by the number, because at the time it was the same number killed by abortion in America each of the previous few years. The fact that most of these children haven't been given names doesn't diminish their worth. I have stood at memorials for the unborn where parents have given names to their children and written them in expressions of love and grief. If we could only hear the names of each of these children whispered to us in the dark, perhaps we would wake up."
-Randy Alcorn, ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments. p. 301
History Is Being Made!
What if America elected the first African-American president . . . and he was pro-slavery? Would that be a victory for civil rights?
Slavery and racism sometimes resulted in death. Abortion always does.
Friends, this day is a day of defeat for the civil rights of Americans. A president is being sworn into office who does not respect or believe in the equality of all human beings that God has created.
He does not discriminate against them due to the color of their skin. He advocates, votes, and encourages the elimination of them due to their size and age and the inconvenience they pose to their parents.
It was not repentant slave drivers or racists who voted this African-American into office. It was people who, like the man they elected, did not respect and value the equality of each human life above their own personal interests.
Before the election I read a quote in an article: "You can't be Black in America and not excited about Obama." I could only think, if you're still in the womb, it's possible.
An African-American baby is almost just as likely to be aborted as he is to be born. African-American babies are 5 times more likely to be aborted than Caucasian babies.
History is being made every single day. It's called a holocaust. A majority of the victims are African-American. What do you think about it? Do you really care that Blacks would be treated equally in America? Or did you just start pretending to care today?
Barack Obama on abortion:
Question: "At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?"
Answer: "Well, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective, or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade."
"I've got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old, I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake I don't want them punished with a baby."
"On this fundamental issue, I will not yield, and Planned Parenthood will not yield."
"The first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing I'd do."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. Was this it?
Slavery and racism sometimes resulted in death. Abortion always does.
Friends, this day is a day of defeat for the civil rights of Americans. A president is being sworn into office who does not respect or believe in the equality of all human beings that God has created.
He does not discriminate against them due to the color of their skin. He advocates, votes, and encourages the elimination of them due to their size and age and the inconvenience they pose to their parents.
It was not repentant slave drivers or racists who voted this African-American into office. It was people who, like the man they elected, did not respect and value the equality of each human life above their own personal interests.
Before the election I read a quote in an article: "You can't be Black in America and not excited about Obama." I could only think, if you're still in the womb, it's possible.
An African-American baby is almost just as likely to be aborted as he is to be born. African-American babies are 5 times more likely to be aborted than Caucasian babies.
History is being made every single day. It's called a holocaust. A majority of the victims are African-American. What do you think about it? Do you really care that Blacks would be treated equally in America? Or did you just start pretending to care today?
"Abortion is the No. 1 cause of death in the African-American community ... the 2006 census shows that the black population in the United States has fallen below the numbers needed to sustain it."
"Abortion affects the African-American community more than any other ethnic group in the country."
"More than 1,400 African-American children are aborted each day in the United States."
"Between 1882 and 1962, 3446 blacks were lynched. That number is surpassed in less than three days by abortion."
"Abortion is genocide. It has had a greater affect on the African-American community than slavery itself."
"Are we being targeted? Isn't that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant."
"[The] incidence of abortion has resulted in a tremendous loss of life. It has been estimated that since 1973 Black women have had about 10 million abortions [probably up to 13 million now]. Michael Novak . . . calculated, 'Since the number of current living Blacks (in the U.S.) is 31 million, the missing 10 million represents an enormous loss, for without abortion, America's Black community would now number 41 million persons. It would be 35 percent larger than it is. Abortion has swept through the Black community like a scythe, cutting down every fourth member.'"
-Source: When is abortion racism?
Barack Obama on abortion:
Question: "At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?"
Answer: "Well, I think that whether you're looking at it from a theological perspective, or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is above my pay grade."
"I've got two daughters, 9 years old and 6 years old, I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake I don't want them punished with a baby."
"On this fundamental issue, I will not yield, and Planned Parenthood will not yield."
"The first thing I'd do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That's the first thing I'd do."
"As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama twice opposed legislation to define as 'persons' babies who survive late-term abortions."
-E.P.M.
"Barack Obama’s America is one in which being human just isn’t enough to warrant care and protection. It is an America where the unborn may legitimately be killed without legal restriction, even by the grisly practice of partial-birth abortion. It is an America where a baby who survives abortion is not even entitled to comfort care as she dies on a stainless steel table or in a soiled linen bin. It is a nation in which some members of the human family are regarded as inferior and others superior in fundamental dignity and rights. In Obama’s America, public policy would make a mockery of the great constitutional principle of the equal protection of the laws."
-Robert P. George
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. Was this it?
"[Martin Luther] King [Jr.] once said, 'The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.' How can the 'Dream' survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. . . . If the Dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to live, our babies must live."
-Alveda C. King
"I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed -- we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
"May God give us the wisdom and the strength to carry forward his unfinished work."
-Coretta Scott King
Justice
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
January 19, 2009
What must the end be?
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
January 19, 2009
What must the end be?
Was Not Jesus An Extremist For Love?
"Was not Jesus an extremist for love -- "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice -- "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ -- "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist -- "Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God." Was not John Bunyan an extremist -- "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist -- "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice -- or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?
... There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators." But they went on with the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest."
-Letter from Birmingham Jail: April 1963, by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Is it not time to be extreme Christians? Is this not the place to stand in uncompromising righteousness, as true Christians would?
There is not so very much different about our nation if compared to all those that have persecuted Christians throughout history. Homosexuality is accepted. Sins of the flesh are exalted. Impurity and injustice reigns. Infanticide is embraced by a majority. Truth is silenced.
Well, I am here to ask you today: How much longer will you allow this to continue? How much longer will you be silent? How much longer? When will you stand?
The small boy kicks hard. He fights against the pain. He pushes away and struggles to find safety. But there is none to be found. He cannot comprehend this terror; what it could mean or why it has come.
Less than .3 percent of America voted for a man who would not advocate for the killing of this child in the womb if his father was a rapist. Less than .3 percent of America voted for a man who has not advocated for the killing of innocent children for the sins of their father. Yet more than 70 percent of Americans are professing Christians! Call me an extremist, if you like. That's fine. I think we should all be extremists for life.
This next election, will you vote for this child's life? Or will you vote to win? Will you speak out on his behalf? Or will you be silenced by the pressures of the world? Will you fear the God who gave this child life? Or will you fear the majority and the threat of evil?
Have you ever questioned why we are not persecuted, why our rights to speak truth are not taken away? Stand uncompromisingly. Cry out on behalf of the children. Do not let such a world rest in peace. Do not let such a world continue as it is. Be a threat to the evil and corruption and lies. Stand until they strike you down. Speak until they shut you up. Find out what it takes to be counted worthy to suffer for what you believe in.
"Where are the Christians?" a young man once cried out from beneath the rule of a government that killed Jews. He stood up, spoke truth, and died for what he believed. Now his cry rings throughout history as a call to you. Do you hear it? Do you hear it? Because now it is your chance.
Where are the Christians? Are they killing the children; are they aiding the enemy? Or are they fighting on the front lines? Are they taking the fury of the battle upon themselves? Tell me, where are the protectors of the children? Where are the Righteous ones of honor and justice and passionate truth?
Where are the Christians? Oh, hear this cry to you! Let it resound! Let its echo haunt you until you must answer its plea. Let it rouse you to action! Friends, we are either a righteous nation, or we are a part of this nation that is not. What will you choose?
Pray Psalm 51 with me, friends. Pray! Then answer this cry with me.
Please, let us answer this cry.
"And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me.'"
-Matthew 25:40
Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die;
save them as they stagger to their death.
Don’t excuse yourself by saying, “Look, we didn’t know.”
For God understands all hearts, and He sees you.
He who guards your soul knows you knew.
He will repay all people as their actions deserve.
-Proverbs 24:11-12
"Dear brothers and sisters, what's the use of saying you have faith if you don't prove it by your actions? That kind of faith can't save anyone."
-James 2:14
"How Christian voters have denied their faith," by Alan Keyes
"2-party system: No choice but evil," by Alan Keyes
When?
Abortion is horrible: a crime, an injustice, a tragedy. It must be stopped.
When will it be stopped?
Imagine you are standing beside a swimming pool chatting with a friend. You notice a young mother sitting a short ways off reading a magazine while her child swims in the pool. As you are talking with your friend you see out of the corner of your eye that the child is beginning to look as if he is struggling to keep his head above water. You glance at the mother and think maybe she hasn't noticed. Your friend looks as concerned as you feel.
"Nearly 4,000 children drown every year because their parents aren't providing sufficient supervision," your friend tells you.
"That's terrible," you respond.
"It is terrible that a child's own parents can care so little," your friend agrees. "This kind of thing needs to stop!"
"I'm praying it will someday," you encourage your friend.
"What we need is someone -- maybe a lifeguard -- to go out there and save the children who are in danger."
"Exactly," you tell your friend. "Someone to patiently commit their efforts to save these children like Wilberforce did to free the slaves."
A few moments pass.
"Why doesn't the mother look up? Why doesn't she notice? Is she this uncaring?!" You finally exclaim. You can't help it. You can't believe what you're seeing. The child is splashing around, drowning -- and the mother hasn't even glanced toward the pool.
"This is sickening," your friend says, looking away.
Now really imagine yourself standing there. What will you do? Yell for help? Tell the mother what's happening? Throw a flotation device into the pool? Jump in yourself to save the child?
My guess is you would take action. That you wouldn't just talk. And you wouldn't just pray. You would act. You would try to save that child's life.
We've talked about how terrible abortion is. We've shared with each other the facts. We know that children are perishing. What will we do about it? It's time we ask that, friends. What will we do?
America is so ignorant, we often complain -- at least to ourselves. The mothers... how can they not know that their own child is dying? It's a child in there. And he is dying. How can they not know? How can they not care?
Well, friends, how can you say that you care until you take action yourself to save that child -- the children; the many, many children who are perishing each and every day? How? The time for action is now. You know what is happening. Don't stand by. Don't just talk. Don't just pray. Don't wait for a specially trained lifeguard or a Wilberforce or a hero to come and change the situation. You have the God-given ability and opportunity to contribute to saving lives. Cry out on their behalf, tell the mothers the truth, distribute literature, lay down your life if you have to! Do something.
Tell me: Why did God give you life, time, resources, a voice with which to speak? Was it that you might live for yourself, gain the things of this world, earn prestige and status, or talk about idle matters? Or was there something more that He dreamed you would be and do?
How did Jesus use the life, time, resources, and voice that God gave Him?
How might we?
Abortion is horrible: a crime, an injustice, a tragedy. It must be stopped.
When will it be stopped?
When will you act?
To know and not act is worse than ignorance.
When will it be stopped?
Imagine you are standing beside a swimming pool chatting with a friend. You notice a young mother sitting a short ways off reading a magazine while her child swims in the pool. As you are talking with your friend you see out of the corner of your eye that the child is beginning to look as if he is struggling to keep his head above water. You glance at the mother and think maybe she hasn't noticed. Your friend looks as concerned as you feel.
"Nearly 4,000 children drown every year because their parents aren't providing sufficient supervision," your friend tells you.
"That's terrible," you respond.
"It is terrible that a child's own parents can care so little," your friend agrees. "This kind of thing needs to stop!"
"I'm praying it will someday," you encourage your friend.
"What we need is someone -- maybe a lifeguard -- to go out there and save the children who are in danger."
"Exactly," you tell your friend. "Someone to patiently commit their efforts to save these children like Wilberforce did to free the slaves."
A few moments pass.
"Why doesn't the mother look up? Why doesn't she notice? Is she this uncaring?!" You finally exclaim. You can't help it. You can't believe what you're seeing. The child is splashing around, drowning -- and the mother hasn't even glanced toward the pool.
"This is sickening," your friend says, looking away.
Now really imagine yourself standing there. What will you do? Yell for help? Tell the mother what's happening? Throw a flotation device into the pool? Jump in yourself to save the child?
My guess is you would take action. That you wouldn't just talk. And you wouldn't just pray. You would act. You would try to save that child's life.
We've talked about how terrible abortion is. We've shared with each other the facts. We know that children are perishing. What will we do about it? It's time we ask that, friends. What will we do?
America is so ignorant, we often complain -- at least to ourselves. The mothers... how can they not know that their own child is dying? It's a child in there. And he is dying. How can they not know? How can they not care?
Well, friends, how can you say that you care until you take action yourself to save that child -- the children; the many, many children who are perishing each and every day? How? The time for action is now. You know what is happening. Don't stand by. Don't just talk. Don't just pray. Don't wait for a specially trained lifeguard or a Wilberforce or a hero to come and change the situation. You have the God-given ability and opportunity to contribute to saving lives. Cry out on their behalf, tell the mothers the truth, distribute literature, lay down your life if you have to! Do something.
Tell me: Why did God give you life, time, resources, a voice with which to speak? Was it that you might live for yourself, gain the things of this world, earn prestige and status, or talk about idle matters? Or was there something more that He dreamed you would be and do?
How did Jesus use the life, time, resources, and voice that God gave Him?
How might we?
Abortion is horrible: a crime, an injustice, a tragedy. It must be stopped.
When will it be stopped?
When will you act?
To know and not act is worse than ignorance.
Volition
http://www.thedoorpost.com/hope/Volition/
Volition (n)- The act of making a choice. Sometimes the choice of inaction has consequences stronger than we could ever imagine. Throughout history, men have been faced with difficult choices in a world that makes it easy for them to conform. This film explores the hope that lies behind every decision made in the face of adversity; the hope that is buried in the heart of those that look beyond themselves and see something bigger worth fighting for.
Volition (n)- The act of making a choice. Sometimes the choice of inaction has consequences stronger than we could ever imagine. Throughout history, men have been faced with difficult choices in a world that makes it easy for them to conform. This film explores the hope that lies behind every decision made in the face of adversity; the hope that is buried in the heart of those that look beyond themselves and see something bigger worth fighting for.
The Mona Lisa Project -- Part II
The second video in Live Action's Mona Lisa Project has been released.
LiveActionFilms.org
Spread the word.
LiveActionFilms.org
Spread the word.
Wilberforce's Passion
In 1807 William Wilberforce abolished the slave trade.
Above you can see a diagram of what the conditions were like on one of the less crowded slave ships.
Notice that each of the marks in the diagram represents a human being. Look at the lower illustration and notice the words:
WOMEN
BOYS
MEN
And consider that within each of these human beings, every person constituting each load of "cargo" carried by this ship, was a soul lovingly crafted by our Heavenly Father.
How could something as horrible as this slave trade have existed, I am tempted to wonder. How could so few people have opposed it. How could it have taken so long to abolish. The questions go on and on as I look back on history from the perspective we are advantaged with now.
I am appalled that such crimes were either perpetrated or overlooked by a "civilized" society. How could it have taken so long for them to see the truth? What happened that even once many saw the truth change was not enacted for many years?
In 1796 Wilberforce got very close to passing a bill that would have abolished the slave trade then and there. Yet all the work he and so many others put into it came to nothing. They lost by 4 votes -- 74-70. And the slave trade was not abolished for 11 more years.
Why?
At the time, Wilberforce wrote in his diary: "Ten of twelve of those who had supported me absent in the country or on pleasure. Enough at the Opera to have carried [the bill]."
I remembered this story today. And how it had convicted me. I pray it convicts you in the same way.
These are crucial days for the cause of life and freedom and God needs all of our "votes" in the struggle to abolish evil and bring forth justice. We're each important to the fight. Only by God's grace can we fight, so I say that humbly, but it's true. We all must fight, must cast "votes" for the cause of justice by lives lived for justice.
No, fun is not bad. Nor is resting. Nor are other good pursuits such as we might have. But abortion will not end if we are out having fun, sitting and resting in our homes, or pursuing lesser passions when we are supposed to be fighting.
God is calling each and every one of us to fight for what is right -- cast our "vote," if you will, by how we spend our time, use the gifts He has given us, and allot our energy.
It all comes down to this:
If our eyes are kept on God and our hearts kept close to His we will be passionate about what He is Passionate about -- we, like Wilberforce, will have His Passion and determination imparted to us. We will fight so as to win, to save, to set free.
But if our eyes are focused on anyone or anything else and our hearts set on things like popularity, success in ambitions of earthly accomplishments, or pleasure and ease we (if not others) will look back in due time and see many battles lost, many lives destroyed, and many souls in chains for lack of zeal on our part.
Dear friend, I ask you, are your eyes fixed on your Beloved's Face? Does your heart beat with His? Do you know His Passion for justice that it has become yours?
Will you win?
Wilberforce fought so as to win. Wilberforce knew God's Passion.
Do you?
We Shall Love Much
"Once let [man] see his sin, and he must see his Savior."
"We may depend upon it, men will never come to Jesus and stay with Jesus and live for Jesus, unless they really know why they are to come and what is their need."
"Just in proportion as we realize how much Christ has done for us, shall we labour to do much for Christ. Much forgiven, we shall love much."
-J.C. Ryle
This Thanksgiving, I pray for you and for myself, that we will learn of all that Christ has done for us. May He give us so clear a picture of our sin, that we must at once strive to be holy as He is Holy, and never, ever stop. May we know Him -- His Character and His Grace, His Love that while we were still sinners -- sinners who crucified Him! -- He gave His Life in our place and bore the punishment for the whole fall of man. And may we ever give our lives back to Him in wholehearted, thoroughly felt, unrestrained thanks. Yes, let us know how much we have been forgiven. Let us love Him much.
"Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all."
-Isaiah 53:4-6
"What Child is this who laid to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.
Nails and spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.
So bring Him incense, gold and myrrh,
Come peasant, king to own Him;
The King of kings salvation brings,
Let loving hearts enthrone Him.
This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary."
Let Your Love Be Known
Today I read an article at ChristianityToday.com entitled, "Obama's Fascinating Interview with Cathleen Falsani." You can read it in full here: http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics/2008/11/obamas_fascinat.html It features an interview that was done back in March of 2004 on the subject of Obama's spirituality.
I offer my commentary on several quotes from the interview because I believe it is important that we take a closer look at what Obama is truly saying.
In this day there are many things we are fighting to protect in our country -- the definition of marriage, the sanctity of life, our rights to free speech, and all the other Christian values that make our nation great. For it is a beloved nation.
But first and foremost among these, and foundational to all of them, is -- must be -- how we perceive God. The definition of marriage is important to us because we know how sacred it is in God's Eyes -- it is an earthly symbol of the Church's union with Him as His beloved, pure, faithful Bride. The treasure of life that is each created human being is important to us because we believe that man was created in the image of God -- that he is the living handiwork of God, fashioned with Love, breathed into with the Breath of life, and formed heart and soul to know and embrace God and to bring Him joy. Our view of each issue rests on and is molded by our view of God.
So as you read my notes, I ask you to consider what is happening in our nation. I ask you to consider, how is God being perceived? And what do the people believe a Christian believes? What do we accept as Christianity? Because if it is not what Jesus revealed to us, I believe it is worthless. I believe it is not saving. I believe it is not truth.
Frankly, the "in" thing right now is for Christians to speak about the good points in Obama's policies and beliefs and to pray that he will have wisdom and will succeed. I beg of you to tell me why we are doing this. If Hitler were taking power of our country would we commend him for his numerous apparently good youth programs that keep kids off the street? Would we commend a few aspects of his initial professed "christian" belief in God? If a dangerous man broke in to your house and was within reach of harming your little children, would you pray that he would have wisdom and would succeed in wielding control? Obama gained his rule illegally -- through lies, deception, and corrupt dealings and funding. How is it different?
Friends, I encourage you to stand out from the crowd. I am not saying to ignore the good things -- or to not pray for this man. But I am urging you to what I believe most important; speak the truth, pray for the children. You can align yourself with those advancing evil in the ways you agree and seek common ground. But righteousness does not win that way. We cannot fully love the children that way. Freedom does not remain real under those conditions. Good never truly claims victory when there is compromise. And we must seek victory. Or children will perish.
You see, I wondered after reading this interview and thinking on how this man has been voted president-elect by this nation's people, what would this once beautiful America's founding fathers think if they could see it all now -- oh how they wanted it to be a nation under God's rule and reign, a righteous nation of justice and principle and freedom for all! And then I thought of them up in Heaven. And I realized that from that perspective, and with such love for the dream they saw, like God, they would probably have to turn their heads away, and just weep.
Friends, we must act. Let your love for this country, for its people, be known by your efforts to save her, to rescue them from the slippery slope they are headed down. Pray for Obama as he rules, if you must; but neglect not to pray with all your hearts for those sentenced to destruction or death by his rule. For they are many. They are young. And few will survive without your help.
Stand for true Christianity. Speak of it. Defend it with your life, your aspirations, your success, your reputation laid on the altar. Live it.
Let your love be known. For Jesus. For the children. For America.
FALSANI:
What do you believe?
OBAMA:
I am a Christian.
...I'd say, probably, intellectually I've drawn as much from Judaism as any other faith. So, I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place...
"Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'"
-John 14:6
Can one say they are "rooted in the Christian tradition" who does not believe the words Jesus spoke to be truth?
FALSANI:
Have you always been a Christian?
OBAMA:
I was raised more by my mother and my mother was Christian.
This answer strikes me as strange. But the question, too. No one has ever "always" been a Christian.
OBAMA:
...I'm a big believer in tolerance. I think that religion at its best comes with a big dose of doubt.
"And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him."
-Hebrews 11:6
FALSANI:
Do you pray often?
OBAMA:
Uh, yeah, I guess I do.
It's not formal, me getting on my knees. I think I have an ongoing conversation with God. I think throughout the day, I'm constantly asking myself questions about what I'm doing, why am I doing it. ...
And so, the biggest challenge, I think, is always maintaining your moral compass. Those are the conversations I'm having internally. I'm measuring my actions against that inner voice that for me at least is audible, is active, it tells me where I think I'm on track and where I think I'm off track.: : :
FALSANI:
Have you read the Bible?
OBAMA:
Absolutely.
I read it not as regularly as I would like. These days I don't have much time for reading or reflection, period.
FALSANI:
Do you try to take some time for whatever, meditation prayer reading?
OBAMA:
I'll be honest with you, I used to all the time, in a fairly disciplined way. But during the course of this campaign, I don't. And I probably need to and would like to, but that's where that internal monologue, or dialogue I think supplants my opportunity to read and reflect in a structured way these days.
"We need to constantly challenge our accustomed behaviors in the light of the Gospel. We may say that we are following our conscience, but are we informing our consciences with the truth about these issues?"
-Bishop Robert Hermann
Obama talks about an "inner voice" telling him what is right and wrong. He seems to call conversing with that voice an "ongoing conversation with God." And this has replaced (literally replaced) being informed with God's truth in Scripture. This is frightening to me.
FALSANI:
Who's Jesus to you?
(He laughs nervously)
OBAMA:
Right.
Jesus is an historical figure for me, and he's also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher.
And he's also a wonderful teacher. I think it's important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.
Is Jesus "powerful" to you because "he serves as that means of us reaching something higher"? Or is the Son of God who died for your sins -- who died in your place -- something more powerful in your life? I'm not criticizing Obama's lack of passion in speaking of Jesus. But I am concerned that he speaks of Jesus as if He is some sort of stepping stone. And then I'm not sure what he's saying with the last line of his comment, but it doesn't sound like he's talking about the One and only person by whom we might be saved -- the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
FALSANI:
Do you have people in your life that you look to for guidance?
OBAMA:
Well, my pastor [Jeremiah Wright] is certainly someone who I have an enormous amount of respect for.
I have a number of friends who are ministers. Reverend Meeks is a close friend and colleague of mine in the state Senate. Father Michael Pfleger is a dear friend, and somebody I interact with closely.
I'm not even going to comment on that.
OBAMA:
... This is something that I'm sure I'd have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and prostelytize. There's the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven't embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they're going to hell.
FALSANI:
You don't believe that?
OBAMA:
I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.
I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.
That's just not part of my religious makeup.
I'm curious, if he believes this, then why claim association with any form of Christianity?
FALSANI:
Do you believe in heaven?
OBAMA:
Do I believe in the harps and clouds and wings?
FALSANI:
A place spiritually you go to after you die?
OBAMA:
What I believe in is that if I live my life as well as I can, that I will be rewarded. I don't presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, the aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing.
When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I've been a good father to them, and I see in them that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they're kind people and that they're honest people, and they're curious people, that's a little piece of heaven.
FALSANI:
Do you believe in sin?
OBAMA:
Yes.
FALSANI:
What is sin?
OBAMA:
Being out of alignment with my values.
Out of alignment with his values? So being pro-life is a sin in his mind? Speaking about conservative values is a sin? No wonder he wants to pass the Fairness Doctrine and the Freedom of Choice Act. How relative is law becoming.
FALSANI:
What happens if you have sin in your life?
OBAMA:
I think it's the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if I'm true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when I'm not true to it, it's its own punishment.
Six words: He has no fear of God.
OBAMA:
Alongside my own deep personal faith, I am a follower, as well, of our civic religion. I am a big believer in the separation of church and state.
... I'm very suspicious of religious certainty expressing itself in politics.
Does that mean he is suspicious of the Ten Commandments? Or our country's founding documents -- that spoke with certainty of God's Sovereignty? Of the founding fathers reasons for believing that we each have inalienable rights? Of Christians believing there is absolute right and absolute wrong in God's Eyes concerning the murdering of the unborn?
FALSANI:
Do you ever have people who know you're a Christian question a particular stance you take on an issue, how can you be a Christian and ...
OBAMA:
Like the right to choose.
I haven't been challenged in those direct ways. And to that extent, I give the public a lot of credit. I'm always struck by how much common sense the American people have. They get confused sometimes, watch FoxNews or listen to talk radio. That's dangerous sometimes. But generally, Americans are tolerant...
Even with how "tolerant" he sounds, I'm concerned with how he will try to handle these "dangerous" and "confusing" influences in the coming days.
Do Not Be Overcome
"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
-Romans 12:21
"Nothing is inevitable. We can't give up, we must never quit.
America is worth fighting for."
-John McCain
"There are more people working full-time to kill babies than there are working full-time to save them. That’s because killing babies is very profitable while saving them is very costly. So costly, that large numbers of Americans who say they oppose abortion are not lifting a finger to stop it. And those that do lift a finger to stop it do just enough to salve the conscience but not enough to stop the killing."
-Gregg Cunningham
"If you don't believe the baby in the womb is the living handiwork of God, you'll do nothing to protect it.
What do you believe?"
-"Come What May," by Advent Film Group
October 10, 2008: Why Obama?
-Romans 12:21
"Nothing is inevitable. We can't give up, we must never quit.
America is worth fighting for."
-John McCain
"There are more people working full-time to kill babies than there are working full-time to save them. That’s because killing babies is very profitable while saving them is very costly. So costly, that large numbers of Americans who say they oppose abortion are not lifting a finger to stop it. And those that do lift a finger to stop it do just enough to salve the conscience but not enough to stop the killing."
-Gregg Cunningham
"If you don't believe the baby in the womb is the living handiwork of God, you'll do nothing to protect it.
What do you believe?"
-"Come What May," by Advent Film Group
October 10, 2008: Why Obama?
America's Choice Now
"Since 1973, however, more than 15 million unborn children have died in legalized abortions -- a tragedy of stunning dimensions that stands in sad contrast to our belief that each life is sacred. These children, over tenfold the number of Americans lost in all our Nation's wars, will never laugh, never sing, never experience the joy of human love; nor will they strive to heal the sick, or feed the poor, or make peace among nations. Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights, and we are infinitely poorer for their loss.
We are poorer not simply for lives not led and for contributions not made, but also for the erosion of our sense of the worth and dignity of every individual. To diminish the value of one category of human life is to diminish us all. Slavery, which treated Blacks as something less than human, to be bought and sold if convenient, cheapened human life and mocked our dedication to the freedom and equality of all men and women. Can we say that abortion -- which treats the unborn as something less than human, to be destroyed if convenient -- will be less corrosive to the values we hold dear?"
-Ronald Reagan, 1984
"Since 1973, however, more than [50] million unborn children have died in legalized abortions -- a tragedy of stunning dimensions that stands in sad contrast to our belief that each life is sacred. These children, over [thirty]fold the number of Americans lost in all our nation's wars, will never laugh, never sing, never experience the joy of human love; nor will they strive to heal the sick, or feed the poor, or make peace among nations. Abortion has denied them the first and most basic of human rights, and we are infinitely poorer for their loss.
We are poorer not simply for lives not led and for contributions not made, but also for the erosion of our sense of the worth and dignity of every individual. To diminish the value of one category of human life is to diminish us all. Slavery, which treated Blacks as something less than human, to be bought and sold if convenient, cheapened human life and mocked our dedication to the freedom and equality of all men and women. Can we say that abortion -- which treats the unborn as something less than human, to be destroyed if convenient -- will be less corrosive to the values we hold dear?"
One Issue
"The man rises to the podium
his speech is eloquent
his manner is precise
his passion is evident
his dreams contagious
The people listen
they hang on every word
every word of hope
every promise of change
every dream of what we could do
as young men and women
with him as our leader
The man rises to the podium
on the shoulders of the youth of our country
the leader rises to power
and we shout in affirmation of his cause
He will bring us out of an economic depression
he will make us powerful
he will make us mighty
"The greatest nation on earth," the people will call us
and all will submit
to our power
all will believe
yes, the whole world will dream with us
This was our dream
this was our cause
this was the story
of how Hitler came to power
We were young
we did not see
we could not conceive
that we were serving a mass murderer
Every step of our march
every salute
every shout
every song
every small act of service
served a man
enabled a tyrant
who served
by strength of our efforts and vote
death to so many
Every small action
it seemed so small at the time
What is the harm?
we would think
This man
he has such great qualities
you cannot discredit his whole agenda
based on just one issue
Yes, such great qualities did that man have
for he led us quickly
to our destruction
How I wish
that on the road to hell
we had not chosen such a great leader
How I wish
we had chosen
a simple man
of justice and morals
How I wish
we had seen
the price of his many, many promises"
"The chief purpose of the government is to protect life. Abandon that and you have abandoned all."
-Thomas Jefferson
"My concern for my own heart in this issue (and my concern for you and others) is that we would grow weary of the issue of abortion and stop thinking biblically about it. But if we were looking back on other issues in our nation’s history -- the issue of slavery for example -- I think we could more clearly see that regardless of other important issues of the day, that one issue should rise above others in its priority. I wonder if we would fault the Christian abolitionists of the past for being “one issue” voters on that topic. Or Christians who stood for civil rights in the 1960s."
-Joshua Harris
Three questions: Would you vote for a man who would murder Jews -- if that was all that was wrong with his policies? Would you call those who wouldn't, and spoke out against doing so, "one issue" voters? And lastly, what precedence do you believe an issue like this holds when God takes us to account for our actions?
Why Obama?
Psalm 10
Why do You stand afar off, O LORD?
Why do You hide in times of trouble?
The wicked in his pride persecutes the poor;
Let them be caught in the plots which they have devised.
For the wicked boasts of his heart’s desire;
He blesses the greedy and renounces the LORD.
The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God;
God is in none of his thoughts.
His ways are always prospering;
Your judgments are far above, out of his sight;
As for all his enemies, he sneers at them.
He has said in his heart, “I shall not be moved;
I shall never be in adversity.”
His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression;
Under his tongue is trouble and iniquity.
He sits in the lurking places of the villages;
In the secret places he murders the innocent;
His eyes are secretly fixed on the helpless.
He lies in wait secretly, as a lion in his den;
He lies in wait to catch the poor;
He catches the poor when he draws him into his net.
So he crouches, he lies low,
That the helpless may fall by his strength.
He has said in his heart,
“God has forgotten;
He hides His face;
He will never see.”
Arise, O LORD!
O God, lift up Your hand!
Do not forget the humble.
Why do the wicked renounce God?
He has said in his heart,
“You will not require an account.”
But You have seen, for You observe trouble and grief,
To repay it by Your hand.
The helpless commits himself to You;
You are the helper of the fatherless.
Break the arm of the wicked and the evil man;
Seek out his wickedness until You find none.
The LORD is King forever and ever;
The nations have perished out of His land.
LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble;
You will prepare their heart;
You will cause Your ear to hear,
To do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed,
That the man of the earth may oppress no more.
Why does Obama rise up? Why do evil men oppress the fatherless, and attack the helpless, killing the innocent in secret? Why does the man of the earth prosper?
Why? Why Obama?
Humble us, O Lord! Cause us to cry out to You, to call upon Your Name! Prepare our hearts and cause Your ear to hear. That justice may come to the fatherless and the oppressed. And this man of the earth may oppress no more.
For he falls deeper, but the people fail to see it. He falls deeper, yet he rises in his fall. And how terrible it will be if he rules us all.
"Why?" one is inclined to cry out. "Why would You allow such a man to wield control?" But is not the earth man's domain? Did You not give it to him to rule, to subdue, to plow and plant by the sweat of his brow?
Obama is linked to terrorists, radicals, and blasphemers. Obama is praised and heralded as "the messiah" even as he promises a holocaust in new measure against the most helpless of children. Who is this man and why are they raising him up? Or does it really matter who he is? Is not the more important question: Who truly empowers him? There are only two sources. Is it not obvious?
But even in such a time of clear crisis, these words Edith Schaeffer once said ring truer than ever:
"[T]here is a deafness, a blindness, an insensitivity among many Christians, for they refuse to recognize the war in which they are involved. They are letting the enemy attack and score victories without resistance."
Give the righteous courage, O Lord -- the courage and the passion to fight! Give us discernment as to the war we must fight -- and how to righteously claim the victory. Humble us until we cry out to You, and submit, and bring forth Your Rule on this earth. Break our hearts and fashion them after Yours. Bind us to the cause of the fatherless and helpless -- that we will not have peace, so that we will pray, that justice might come.
Why Obama? Why does he rise up? Why would You allow him to come to power? Because we must stand. Because we must fight. Because we must humble ourselves and fervently pray. Because we must submit our nation, once again, to God's rule and ask for His Help.
"Men must be governed by God, or they will be ruled by tyrants."
-William Penn
"What we must all learn is that you can't lose a freedom anyplace without losing freedom everyplace.
If you are going to let one segment of society or one area of the country become maligned without insisting that the truth be known, all other segments and areas are subject to similar fates."
-Ronald Reagan
One Generation Away
"It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free."
-Sarah Palin, VP Debate, October 3, 2008
Thank you, Sarah. We already fight beside you. And we already have our hand on the torch, although you have not yet passed it on, for we too love liberty.
Though the horizon dim and night come, though winds blow and the heavens weep, its flame will not extinguish on our watch.
For we will fight for life. And we will fight for love. To God's call on us each to fight for true freedom for all, "with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour."
The American Dream
"Peace once mine
and all that was secure
I laid it all down
that it could be yours
Hope, my sole gain
like the blood through my veins
flowed for you
though life waned
I fought for life
I fought for love
for you, my children
the war was won
battlefields now silent
halls now sacred
laws now broken
and names engraved
history does not tell
of the tears and the pain
of the fears endured
of the passion untamed
it does not echo
the war cries along the front lines
the courage that embraced my soul
and the faith that was not in vain
it does so little to capture
the longing for justice that enraptured
the ache for better days
and the agony that was heard
in the voices of the men I fought beside
and at home
the piercing grief
that rent my soul
when I saw the face of a small child
who had lost her hero, her father
it does not tell of how I felt
when the ground was broken
for a fallen son
too young and innocent for life to end
it does not tell
but I can
and I will
I can craft a few words
with these hands
I can lay my memories on paper
in pen and ink
so that someday you will know
when the days are dark
when you are alone
when you look for a spark
of light, of hope
when you dream of liberty
yes, you will know
that I fought for you
that I saw America beautiful
that I saw the dream true
that I doubted, like you
but I believed in it, too
that I fought for truth
a truth they could not steal
and I fought for freedom
if only just to hold it and make it real
I fought for you
I fought for life
I fought for love
and the war was won"
"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever."
-Thomas Jefferson
"One of the reasons the Founders' belief in God is so important is that, as the Declaration of Independence states it, rights are granted by God and are inalienable because of it. Rights cannot be taken by government; they are from God, and only He can remove them. One such inalienable right listed in the Declaration is the right to life.
...While the Founders would probably have never imagined it would come this far, this right also protects the right of the unborn.
...The Delcaration of Independence doesn't say, 'We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men -- except the helpless unborn -- are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.' But that's precisely what the practice of abortion assumes is true.
Many groups have hijacked the word freedom to their own advantage: 'the freedom to choose.' Nevertheless, the countless unborn children obviously didn't have the right to choose life because they were simply inconvenient.
The 'right' to abort has made top placement on the distortion of 'freedom' list. Do you really think our Founders -- who risked the burning of their houses, the killing of their families, and certain death by Great Britain -- did what they did for our 'right' to kill the unborn?
Certainly not."
-Seen & Heard, by Kyle Williams
"Our young friends -- yes, young friends, for in our hearts you will always be young, full of the love that is youth, love of life, love of joy, love of country -- you fought for your country and for its safety and for the freedom of others with strength and courage. We love you for it. We honor you."
-Ronald Reagan
Shoulder The Burden
One of the most important reasons we study history is to relate past events to the time in which we live so that we can learn from the right and the wrong of those who have gone before.
"Like the old saying goes: 'Learn from history or be doomed to repeat it.'"
"We must all take responsibility for what is happening to our country. If those of us who have a voice do not raise it in outrage at the treatment of our fellow human beings, we will have collaborated in their doom. It is not good enough to raise these voices in our homes. Many Germans do this."
-Swing Kids____________________ "It would take years for many Hitler Youth to digest the truth about National Socialism: They had served a mass murderer and, in so doing, had contributed to the deaths of millions of people."
-Hitler's Youth, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti____________________ "Furious, the officer swore at [the Nazi Youth Leader] and said, "Hasn't it occurred to you yet that we are serving a mass murderer?"
-Hitler's Youth, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti____________________ "Sixty years have passed since the bloodiest war in history ended. Some people wonder: Could another despot like Hitler rise to power on the shoulders of young people?
Only young people today can answer that question. What are you willing to do to prevent such a shadow from falling over you and others?"
-Hitler's Youth, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
"Like the old saying goes: 'Learn from history or be doomed to repeat it.'"
Stand Up And Live
Words can be very powerful. Words can provide hope or words can steal hope. Words can reveal truth or words can conceal truth. Words can provide life and words can destroy life.
God created our world, the plants, the animals, and us, by speaking simple words. God decreed judgement through His prophets of old with words. He guided His people, the Israelites, through words. Jesus healed the sick, made the lame walk, the blind see, set captives free, and proclaimed sins forgiven, with words. The laws and contracts of our land are made up of words. Battle cries are composed of words. Poetry is wrought with beautiful words. For words of truth, throughout the ages, dear and precious saints have died.
For the innocent man imprisoned, the words of truth are his priceless treasure. For the oppressed voice beneath the rule of a tyrant, the words of freedom are his worthy creed. For the Christian persecuted for his beliefs, the words of Life are very, very costly.
For countless people throughout history, words have silenced brave heroes, pronounced terror, brought forth death, imparted conviction, proclaimed love, and birthed revolutions. For countless people throughout history, words have meant death -- or they have meant life.
Raise your voice. Choose your words wisely. Make the truth known to every corner of the world. Spark hope. Speak life.
God created our world, the plants, the animals, and us, by speaking simple words. God decreed judgement through His prophets of old with words. He guided His people, the Israelites, through words. Jesus healed the sick, made the lame walk, the blind see, set captives free, and proclaimed sins forgiven, with words. The laws and contracts of our land are made up of words. Battle cries are composed of words. Poetry is wrought with beautiful words. For words of truth, throughout the ages, dear and precious saints have died.
For the innocent man imprisoned, the words of truth are his priceless treasure. For the oppressed voice beneath the rule of a tyrant, the words of freedom are his worthy creed. For the Christian persecuted for his beliefs, the words of Life are very, very costly.
For countless people throughout history, words have silenced brave heroes, pronounced terror, brought forth death, imparted conviction, proclaimed love, and birthed revolutions. For countless people throughout history, words have meant death -- or they have meant life.
Raise your voice. Choose your words wisely. Make the truth known to every corner of the world. Spark hope. Speak life.
"I've got to be hearing clearly from God about what it is that He's giving me to share from this platform. It doesn't have to be earth shattering for everyone else, but it has to be for me."
-Steven Curtis Chapman
"Do not sit down to write until you are ready to stand up and live."
-Henry David Thoreau
Why Write?
"I write -- not for the sake of glory, not for the sake of fame, not for the sake of success, but for the sake of my soul."
-Rachel Joy Scott____________________ ____________________ ____________________
-Rachel Joy Scott
"I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.
Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who's Who. Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live -- men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization -- because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake."
-Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech, 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope."
-Robert F. Kennedy
"Everywhere and at all times of greatest trial men have appeared, prophets and saints who cherished their freedom, who preached the One God and who with His help enabled people to reverse of their downward course. Of course man is free, but without God he is defenseless against evil. He is like a rudderless ship, at the mercy of the storm, an infant without his mother, a cloud dissolving into thin air.
I ask you as a Christian who is wrestling to preserve his greatest treasure, if you are hesitating and playing games of intrigue and procrastination in hope that someone else will raise his arm in your defense? Has God not given you the strength and will to fight?"
-The White Rose: The Fourth Leaflet
Look, We Didn't Know
"The Jews were taken away
with packed suitcases
scared faces
and tears in their eyes
they were loaded on to trucks
and taken away
We watched the men in uniform come
we knew that they would
we had read the notices
we had heard the stories
We heard them pound on the doors
we heard their angry voices
we shuddered and stood in our doorways
watching
with grieving hearts
our neighbors be led away
Some of them I knew
some of them were friends
some of them were strangers
some were young
some were old
some were infants
some could not make the journey
I am told
Some were brothers
some were sisters
they were all family
for I saw their faces
and I watched the trails of tears trickle down
as they turned to look back on their homes
for a last goodbye
To the country, they went
that's what someone said
somewhere safe
I'd hoped
they would be sent
Reports circulated
but no one really knew
that's what we told ourselves
for what could we do?
But forty million lives were lost in such ways
forty million souls
did apathy watch leave
and hear rumors of
how death would meet
forty million
some Jews
some Gentiles
some friends
some foes
some known
many unknown
forty million
gone
as our lives went on
We failed to believe
we chose to be deceived
we let them leave
we let the soldiers march
we let the evil roam free
to kill and destroy
we closed our eyes
and said we did not see
we said we did not see
Oh, do not be blind as I
young friend
please hear history's cry
remember the deeds
open your eyes to the wrong
learn from us now
heed
my cry"
"There is an old maxim that we tell our children: 'He who won't listen will have to feel.'"
-The White Rose: The Fourth Leaflet
Rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die;
save them as they stagger to their death.
Don’t excuse yourself by saying, “Look, we didn’t know.”
For God understands all hearts, and He sees you.
He who guards your soul knows you knew.
He will repay all people as their actions deserve.
-Proverbs 24:11-12
Pilate's Crime
Now at the feast he used to release for them one prisoner for whom they asked. And among the rebels in prison, who had committed murder in the insurrection, there was a man called Barabbas. And the crowd came up and began to ask Pilate to do as he usually did for them. And he answered them, saying, "Do you want me to release for you the King of the Jews?" ... But the chief priests stirred up the crowd to have him release for them Barabbas instead. And Pilate again said to them, "Then what shall I do with the man you call the King of the Jews?" And they cried out again, "Crucify him." And Pilate said to them, "Why, what evil has he done?" But they shouted all the more, "Crucify him." So Pilate, wishing to satisfy the crowd, released for them Barabbas, and having scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified.
-Mark 15:6-15
And are some of our rulers of the people and candidates to rule no different today? Pilate did not think it right to kill an innocent Man. He would not do it himself -- he washed his hands of it! But he turned Him over to the people. They could still choose. And he would not stop them.
And just as Pilate delivered Jesus up to be crucified by the people, if that was their choice, Joe Biden delivers the children of our country up to be aborted by the people, according to their choices.
Pilate let a murderer go free and delivered an innocent Man to His death. Joe Biden lets murderers go unpunished and delivers countless children to their deaths.
Pilate did not think it right -- he tried to claim innocence of the crime. Joe Biden says he hates abortion and has stated that he would never advise it for anyone because it goes against his very beliefs.
Yet, Pilate delivered Jesus to die, did he not? Pilate was not innocent. So what shall we conclude of Joe Biden who votes for the people's right to choose that innocent children should die? What shall we conclude of this man who delivers children to their murderers while claiming to know that it is, in fact, murder -- a formidable crime of injustice?
"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'
"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?' Then he will answer them, saying, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
-Matthew 25:31-46
Let Not The Innocent Perish
"I weep that such a tragedy as the terrorist attacks would happen again. But would it not be justice for God to allow our innocent to die, for terror to come in on a peaceful day, and steal their lives without warning or mercy? 'Our land is sacred!' one is inclined to cry out -- for we are, after all, a Christian nation. But do we not allow God’s innocent ones, His precious treasures to die, for unfathomable terror to come in and disturb their peaceful rest, and steal their lives without warning or mercy? Did our country not legalize making the most sacred of earthly places, a mother’s womb, a killing ground?
Oh, let not the innocent perish for our apathy, for our cowardice! Stand for life!
Yes, we are pro-life. But what have we done to stop the deaths? Have we done what we can? Could we look a holocaust survivor in the eye and tell them that we have done and are doing all that we can to stop this holocaust of holocausts? Why should God step in and protect our innocent when we do not step in and protect His? Is He not a God of Justice?
Imagine there is a threat of “9/11″ happening again. 2,977 people will die. 2,977 souls passing into eternity -- just think of it! Let it break your heart! Fathom the value of each life, my friend -- that our Creator gave His own Son to die an excruciating death on a Cross that every one of them might live.
Now I encourage you to pray as you would, speak as you would, act as you would for the many, many more children who will most assuredly die tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the day after that… if we do not pray, if we fail to speak up on their behalf, if we will not act.
And may God have mercy on us."
Believe
"Sweet country, once free,
of beauty and grace
beautiful country once home
to those who were brave
long years it has been
since I left your shores
and long days have been spent
fighting your wars
battlegrounds red
where rest your heroes
fill my vision at night
and burden me so
how many men died
you fail to see
such precious young lives
did hatred cease
on foreign shores far
so far away from here
we summoned our courage
we wept countless tears
we fought hard
we fought true
few survived
oh, how we fought for you!
yet how little you hope
so little you care
for the dream each man treasured
O country once fair
how seldom you know
how seldom you believe
what we lost that you might have
and we bled that you might seek
for many friends had I
and their hearts beat strong as mine
yes, many friends had I
who thought the great cost justified
many friends had I
who dreamed that you would be
one day, once more,
our homeland of peace
many friends had I
who breathed their last
who never came back
for America, dear sweet America,
because they saw you true
because they dreamed you free
because they loved you
because they believed"
Patriot Day
September 11, 2008
Do you believe?
of beauty and grace
beautiful country once home
to those who were brave
long years it has been
since I left your shores
and long days have been spent
fighting your wars
battlegrounds red
where rest your heroes
fill my vision at night
and burden me so
how many men died
you fail to see
such precious young lives
did hatred cease
on foreign shores far
so far away from here
we summoned our courage
we wept countless tears
we fought hard
we fought true
few survived
oh, how we fought for you!
yet how little you hope
so little you care
for the dream each man treasured
O country once fair
how seldom you know
how seldom you believe
what we lost that you might have
and we bled that you might seek
for many friends had I
and their hearts beat strong as mine
yes, many friends had I
who thought the great cost justified
many friends had I
who dreamed that you would be
one day, once more,
our homeland of peace
many friends had I
who breathed their last
who never came back
for America, dear sweet America,
because they saw you true
because they dreamed you free
because they loved you
because they believed"
Patriot Day
September 11, 2008
Do you believe?
One Life
The man had walked a long way from home.
He turned to look back now
as he remembered the warmth of the hearth-fire
and the sweet glow of love
that permeated his home.
He ached within to hold the small hand of his child,
to look into the eyes of his young wife,
and to share the stories of old and distant times
with his wise, aging father.
His heart hurt for home.
The path stretched before him and behind him
into darkness beneath a starlit sky.
What would the journey ahead hold?
Should he turn back now?
Must he continue?
Oh, but he knew that he had to go on,
or there would be no home that remained in this land.
He took a deep breath and plodded on ahead,
step after step,
towards wounds and war and tears of pain.
War had come to his country,
as if in a night,
and was quickly stealing all that was good
from the beautiful, rich land
of honest people
and proud heritage.
Could anything stop the evil that marched the streets
and threatened with menacing shouts
and destroyed the future
by fear and dread?
Could anything stop the men in uniform who now had control?
He often wondered this
and agonized over all that could have been done in the past
to stop the black shroud
that had now snuffed out almost all hope or light
from the good people's eyes --
only hatred and terror shone in them now.
The man knew his eyes looked the same.
He knew he had to fight now
for all that was being lost --
for all that was once right and lovely and safe.
And with a pounding heart,
he knew that he might lose.
He feared what would become of the land he loved
if he fought and failed.
But more than anything,
he cared for what would happen to the children of the land now captive
if he did not fight at all.
Their souls were free and their hearts were
innocent,
but for how long --
oh, how long could they stay the same --
young and bright,
amid chaos and death and bloodshed?
He squinted his eyes in the darkness
as the tears flowed and flowed
and his breaths drew ragged and deep
over memories of innocence shattered in his own soul.
The bombs had fallen,
the planes had roared overhead,
the alarms had sounded with the wailing of the people,
until, in one blast,
all was silent and gray and ruined.
"Help! Somebody help!" he had cried.
He was only a small boy at the time.
But no answer came.
Years later,
he traveled far and started a small family of his own,
and tried to forget all that he had seen and heard.
But as time would have it,
he could not escape the evil that destroyed.
War had followed him --
all the way to the peaceful, prosperous village
where he met his beautiful, young bride,
and only two years later,
smiled in joy at the arrival of his first son.
Peace, he had thought,
is what I will give to my son.
He will not learn to hate
as I have.
He will not learn of war with his eyes
or hear its sounds in his ears.
His heart will know innocence and beauty
and his soul will know rest.
I will teach him love
and he will never be afraid as I was.
But war had come,
and with it, fire and passion in his own soul
to keep the promises made to this life
bound inseparably to him
by ties of love and hope and shared pain.
What would become of the promises made?
What would become of all the children of this land once righteously ruled?
What price would he have to pay
to insure that it would be good and beautiful
and full of the things that are pure that bring joy?
What price would he pay?
What would he give to purchase freedom for the generations to come?
Anything --
he would give anything.
Even to save one life.
And it would be worth it.
He knew this with conviction,
for when it came to the children --
the heartbeat of his homeland --
he bowed to no compromise,
felt no doubts,
accepted no defeat.
Are we the same?
"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."
-Schindler's List
"Even the smallest person can change the course of the future."
-The Lord of the Rings
Humble Us
"Almighty God, we are grateful for the gift called America. We're thankful for the freedom to celebrate as we are doing and have done this week. We have repeatedly invoked Your blessing on our country, and as we do, we're reminded of the words You gave to Solomon: 'If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, You will hear from heaven and heal our land.' So we pray, humble us Lord, humble us as a people to serve You. Help us to seek Your Face, alone. Give us the courage to turn from our self-centered, wicked ways. Hear us, oh Lord, as we ask You to heal our land.
... And, oh Lord, in humility, we ask that You remind us that we cannot put our country first unless You are foremost. For as Jesus taught His disciples, Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen."
-Dan Yeary at the 2008 Republican National Convention
Unless You are foremost... unless You are foremost, our country will not come first. And until You are foremost, the children will perish. Oh, God, help us! Humble us. Humble us, that the children might live! Humble us until You are foremost in our hearts, minds, dreams, desires, and actions. Humble us until we seek Your Face, alone, and turn from our wicked ways.
In Jesus' precious Name, Amen.
How Could We Have Let This Happen?
The boy stood shivering in the darkened hallway as he listened to the adults talk in the next room. He was only twelve, but even he knew of the approaching dangers of war -- even he dreaded what the future might hold.
He peered from where he hid in the shadows to watch the expressions of his father. Anger deepened the weary lines of his face and fear shone in his eyes. Everyone's voice was edged with the dark tone of dread.
The shades of the windows were drawn. The glowing embers of a forgotten fire burned quiet and orange in the hearth. It was late in the night, but the disturbing shock of recent news was fresh on everyone's mind.
How could horror so vivid and real come to this land of peace and prosperity?
How could we have let this happen?
"What people discard in order to gratify themselves when they have superior power, they cannot thereafter rely upon in order to defend themselves when superior power is brought to bear against them. If justice is the good of the stronger in the first case, how can justice for all be the rallying cry against abuses of strength in the second?"
-Alan Keyes
There is no justice for the children. Their rights are stolen. The strong overpower them. Our laws do not protect them. We do not protect them.
There is no justice for the children. Sweet, young children still lying within their mother's womb are brutally tortured and murdered as if they are the worst of criminals. Sweet, young, innocent children are murdered -- over 4,000 each day. How can this continue? And yet it does. It does.
There is no justice for the children. And yet we stand by. We go on with our lives. We live just the same as if they did not die in mass each and every day. How can we not weep at the thought, the very thought of just one of these precious treasures perishing? Oh, dear friend, weep for your own soul if you do not! How can we not stand and cry out for it to stop, putting every breath to a cry of anguish on their behalf? How? How?
There is no justice for the children. Hurricanes ravage our land. A few die. And many mourn. Terrorists plot in hatred and wreak their havoc. A few thousand die. And many mourn. We all pray. We all bow our heads and pray it will not happen again -- "God, save us -- protect us!" we cry. And the danger passes. And yet the children die. Over 4,000 die each day. And who truly mourns for them? Who bows their head with the same passionate sorrow over this tragedy. The youngest of victims are no less valuable. But they are more innocent. Who will pray?
There is no justice for the children. And if we will not act now, if we stand by in apathy just a few moments longer, as the weak are overpowered by the strong... how my heart beats in agony at the thought! How could we have let this happen? we will say to ourselves, as we gather in livingrooms with shades drawn, and fear heavy on our minds.
There is no justice for the children. And if we stay out of the way, that injustice might prevail... then woe to us if justice comes!
There is no justice for the children. But it will come. Someday, it will come. Will you be with those who stand for justice, and thus withstand it? Or will you find yourself as unable to stand then as you are unwilling to now?
There Was A Time
"Was not Jesus an extremist for love -- "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice -- "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the gospel of Jesus Christ -- "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist -- "Here I stand; I can do none other so help me God." Was not John Bunyan an extremist -- "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." Was not Abraham Lincoln an extremist -- "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." Was not Thomas Jefferson an extremist -- "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." So the question is not whether we will be extremist but what kind of extremist will we be. Will we be extremists for hate or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice -- or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?
... There was a time when the church was very powerful. It was during that period when the early Christians rejoiced when they were deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town the power structure got disturbed and immediately sought to convict them for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators." But they went on with the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," and had to obey God rather than man. They were small in number but big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." They brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contest."
-Letter from Birmingham Jail: April 1963, by Martin Luther King, Jr.
Yes, there was a time when the Church was very powerful.
There was a time when a song of praise resounded throughout the streets, throughout the prison cells, throughout the angry throngs of people that enclosed the joyful few who dared to stand and speak out for what they believed.
These "extreme" Christians, these gloriously free individuals, were beaten, boiled in oil, hated, mocked, spit at, stoned, flogged, imprisoned, and crucified; and yet, they were not quieted. They had been honored by their King. And they greatly rejoiced.
They stood for justice. They stood for hope. They laid down their lives so that others could live. They took up their crosses. They followed Jesus.
And children lived because of this.
Where is the Church of Christ today?
Stand for justice! Be hope! Lay down your life that the Church will arise, unfettered in her passion and "extreme" love for her Bridegroom, and thusly for truth, for justice, for right, and for life. Take up your cross and break off the chains of comfort! Run the race set before you so as to gain the Prize.
Be that Church. Bring an end to the evil! Die daily to give Life and Love to those perishing. Be deemed worthy to suffer for what you believe in.
Our True Country
Regardless of your and my varied political views, I thought the last portion of Senator John McCain's speech at the RNC was incredibly inspiring. Just imagine if we, as Christians, were a tenth as patriotic as he. Just imagine, as you read through his words, if we loved God, treasured even the thought of our true Home, and cherished our fellow citizens' safety and liberty, with just a fraction of the passionate conviction and spirit of self-sacrifice this man has exhibited for America and its citizens throughout a lifetime of service and devotion.
I pray that when God calls us to our post, and as He commands of us our duty, that we will not shirk our responsibility, but rather will respond with ardor and respect, in both words and deeds. I sincerely pray that we will not hide from history, and that we will not rely on history, but that we will make history. I pray that we will be true and evermore loyal to our Savior, and courageous patriots of our King. Oh, my dear friends, pray with me that we will fight for Him as long as we draw breath!
Yes, the words I shared were the words of a man blessed and honored to have fought for his country, and to fight still.
When will you fight for yours?
Fight with me. Fight for our children's future. Fight for justice and opportunity for all. Belong to God, be fully owned by Him -- your Savior, your Home. Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight!
"I've been an imperfect servant of my country for many years. But I have been her servant first, last and always. And I've never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I didn't thank God for the privilege.
Long ago, something unusual happened to me that taught me the most valuable lesson of my life. I was blessed by misfortune. I mean that sincerely. I was blessed because I served in the company of heroes, and I witnessed a thousand acts of courage, compassion and love.
On an October morning, in the Gulf of Tonkin, I prepared for my 23rd mission over North Vietnam. I hadn't any worry I wouldn't come back safe and sound. I thought I was tougher than anyone. I was pretty independent then, too. I liked to bend a few rules, and pick a few fights for the fun of it. But I did it for my own pleasure; my own pride. I didn't think there was a cause more important than me.
Then I found myself falling toward the middle of a small lake in the city of Hanoi, with two broken arms, a broken leg, and an angry crowd waiting to greet me. I was dumped in a dark cell, and left to die. I didn't feel so tough anymore. When they discovered my father was an admiral, they took me to a hospital. They couldn't set my bones properly, so they just slapped a cast on me. When I didn't get better, and was down to about a hundred pounds, they put me in a cell with two other Americans. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even feed myself. They did it for me. I was beginning to learn the limits of my selfish independence. Those men saved my life.
I was in solitary confinement when my captors offered to release me. I knew why. If I went home, they would use it as propaganda to demoralize my fellow prisoners. Our Code said we could only go home in the order of our capture, and there were men who had been shot down before me. I thought about it, though. I wasn't in great shape, and I missed everything about America. But I turned it down.
A lot of prisoners had it worse than I did. I'd been mistreated before, but not as badly as others. I always liked to strut a little after I'd been roughed up to show the other guys I was tough enough to take it. But after I turned down their offer, they worked me over harder than they ever had before. For a long time. And they broke me.
When they brought me back to my cell, I was hurt and ashamed, and I didn't know how I could face my fellow prisoners. The good man in the cell next door, my friend, Bob Craner, saved me. Through taps on a wall he told me I had fought as hard as I could. No man can always stand alone. And then he told me to get back up and fight again for our country and for the men I had the honor to serve with. Because every day they fought for me.
I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's.
I'm not running for president because I think I'm blessed with such personal greatness that history has anointed me to save our country in its hour of need. My country saved me. My country saved me, and I cannot forget it. And I will fight for her for as long as I draw breath, so help me God.
If you find faults with our country, make it a better one. If you're disappointed with the mistakes of government, join its ranks and work to correct them. Enlist in our Armed Forces. Become a teacher. Enter the ministry. Run for public office. Feed a hungry child. Teach an illiterate adult to read. Comfort the afflicted. Defend the rights of the oppressed. Our country will be the better, and you will be the happier. Because nothing brings greater happiness in life than to serve a cause greater than yourself.
I'm going to fight for my cause every day as your President. I'm going to fight to make sure every American has every reason to thank God, as I thank Him: that I'm an American, a proud citizen of the greatest country on earth, and with hard work, strong faith and a little courage, great things are always within our reach. Fight with me. Fight with me.
Fight for what's right for our country.
Fight for the ideals and character of a free people.
Fight for our children's future.
Fight for justice and opportunity for all.
Stand up to defend our country from its enemies.
Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America.
Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.
Thank you, and God Bless you."
I pray that when God calls us to our post, and as He commands of us our duty, that we will not shirk our responsibility, but rather will respond with ardor and respect, in both words and deeds. I sincerely pray that we will not hide from history, and that we will not rely on history, but that we will make history. I pray that we will be true and evermore loyal to our Savior, and courageous patriots of our King. Oh, my dear friends, pray with me that we will fight for Him as long as we draw breath!
Yes, the words I shared were the words of a man blessed and honored to have fought for his country, and to fight still.
When will you fight for yours?
Fight with me. Fight for our children's future. Fight for justice and opportunity for all. Belong to God, be fully owned by Him -- your Savior, your Home. Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight!
By 2038 The Black Vote Will Be Insignificant
The voice of racism:
"The young men protested
The young women stood their ground
The authorities balked at their courage
and mocked their audacity
Who were these young "black" folk
to so challenge the way things were?
Things had always been this way
Let them stay the same
just let them stay the same
But the young men protested
And the young women stood their ground
Beaten, struck to the ground, and spit upon
these were a sturdy lot
these Freedom Fighters
How could they be stopped?
They must not have the right to vote
They were "black"
and that was that
until that was changed
which it couldn't be
they shouldn't have a say
It just wasn't their right
But then the laws were passed
and we knew not what to do
We tried to keep them out
We tried to screen them with literacy tests
We tried to filter them out
but still they came
still they stood
still they came
and cast their votes
How then can we stop them
this tenacious lot
who fight for what they believe?
They fight for voters' rights
they fight for equal rights
and I don't like it at all"
Its results today:
"Between 1882 and 1962, 3446 blacks were lynched. That number is surpassed in less than three days by abortion."
"Abortion is genocide. It has had a greater affect on the African-American community than slavery itself."
"More than 1,400 African-American children are aborted each day in the United States."
"Are we being targeted? Isn't that genocide? We are the only minority in America that is on the decline in population. If the current trend continues, by 2038 the black vote will be insignificant."
-Various Sources
Where are the "Freedom Fighters" of today? Who will fight that our children might have a say in this world? Where are the young men to protest injustice? Where are the young women to firmly stand their ground because they believe in something greater than themselves?
Speak out for the children! Don't stand by and do nothing. Your children are losing their voice as you ignore the voiceless. Know, the enemy they face is the greatest enemy of your own race.
Speak out for the children!
Don't vote against the Black voters of tomorrow. Don't forget them as you vote. Don't forget how hard-won your rights were, and how quickly they can be lost.
Sing Amen
From underneath the trees, we watch the sky
Confusing stars for satellites
I never dreamed that you'd be mine
But here we are, we're here tonight
Singing Amen, I'm alive
Singing Amen, I'm alive
If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We'd see the day when nobody died
Amen I, I'm alive
Amen I, I'm alive
And in the air the fireflies
Our only light in paradise
We'll show the world they were wrong
And teach them all to sing along
Singing Amen I'm alive
Singing Amen I'm alive
If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We'd see the day when nobody died
If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We'd see the day when nobody died
And as we lie beneath the stars
We realize how small we are
If they could love like you and me
Imagine what the world could be
If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
We'd see the day when nobody died
We'd see the day, We'd see the day
When nobody died
We'd see the day, We'd see the day
When nobody died
We'd see the day when nobody died
-All The Right Reasons: If Everyone Cared, by Nickelback
Pray for the day when the children will be cared for, when the children will be loved, when we will share the gift of life. Pray for the day when abortion ends. Pray that we'd see the day when nobody died.
Imagine what the world could be. Sing Amen.
I Had A Dream
The two boys played in the field, chasing each other and laughing. When they got tired, they walked over to the nearby creek and sat down beneath the cool shade of a big willow tree. After a time, the younger boy broke the silence.
"We'll be different when we grow up. Things'll be different then, you wait and see," he said to his friend Caleb. But Caleb only nodded and gazed out on the waters of the creek. He looked worried and young Isaac wondered why.
After a moment or two of worrying too, the younger boy lay back on the grass and rested his head on his arms, and dreamed of the day when life would be different. Maybe things weren't different today, but someday they would be. Someday the world would be a better place. Someday he would be free. Yes, someday...
Long years passed and he thought back to this day now. He thought back to the wonder of those years of simple friendship and wonderful, hopeful, impossible dreams. For now Caleb was his master. And Isaac worked the fields from dawn till dark. Now Caleb was cruel and would sometimes beat him. And Isaac was still a slave.
But I had a dream, Isaac would often think to himself as he put his hands to the plow once more beneath a sweltering hot sun. It was a beautiful dream, he would tell himself when he drove the wagon through the snowdrifts and harsh winds of winter's piercing cold.
I had a dream, he would recall as he lay down to sleep; too exhausted to take off his coveralls, eyes barely open. And when he awoke, he would remember the visions of the night -- visions of the dream, where he was free, and Caleb was his friend once more. And as he walked out to the field once more today, all he could think was, Another day... yet another day; yes, but I once had a dream.
As little as he could escape the master he once knew as a friend, he could less escape the dream of peace they had once shared. For they had once known a dream. Yes, together, they had once known a dream. And in those days, it was not impossible. Whatever had happened since, Isaac did not know. He knew Caleb's heart had turned. He knew he was still a slave. But he also knew that he had once had a dream, and that Caleb had seen it too.
I have a dream. It is a dream of justice, a dream of freedom -- a dream that one day, all of God's children will live in peace. I have a dream that one day, there will not be born committing injustice against the unborn, or freedom for some and rights taken from another. I have a dream that one day we will be a Christian nation that will rise up and live out the true meaning of our creed, that we will make true on our promise to ardently pursue and so firmly lay claim of such a glorious dream as this: That our children would know justice. That our children would be free. That our children would live. That everyone would have a chance.
I have a dream. Can you see it?
Hero
Well, who is this angry man I see
In the mirror looking back at me?
It's a man who's tired, a man who's weak
And it's a man who needs a Savior
And who is this fearful little child
Crying out for home, lost in the wild?
With a lonely heart that's fading fast
It's a child who needs a Savior
A child who needs a Savior
And what is this longing in my soul
That I get so scared and angry?
I need more than just a little help
I need someone who will save me
Come and save me
I need someone to save me
Who will save me?
Come and save me
And who is this One nailed to a Cross
Who would rather die than leave us lost?
He's come to rescue us, come to set us free
Hallelujah, hallelujah
It is Christ the Lord... our Savior
-Declaration: Savior, by Steven Curtis Chapman
"Well, who am I that I would be
Counted by you as worthy?
I'm a child who's helpless, with no voice to speak
And I'm a child who needs a hero
My heart beats strong for a little while
It beats for hope, it dreams and smiles
It little knows it will not last
For it's a heart without a hero
It's a heart without a hero
Is it so wrong that I should ask
The right, the chance to live and laugh?
Is there no one to hear my cry?
Is there no one to save me?
No one to save me...
I need someone to save me
Who will save me?
Come and save me
And who is this Christian who wears a cross
Who claims to love while I am lost?
Come and rescue me, come and set me free
Where is the One you say Loves me?
Where is Christ within... this hero?"
Who were we that Jesus would rather die an excruciating death on a cross than live without us? Who are we that He answers when we cry out for saving Grace?
Who are we, once sentenced to death ourselves, that we will not do the same for the unborn children who silently cry out to us, "Come and save me!"?
May God grant us compassionate hearts filled with the sacrifical, adoptive Love He first gave us. God, help us open our hearts to You! Break our hearts for the children as Yours broke for us. Grant us the honor of giving our lives back to You for the sake of the children.
Friend & Patriot
Fog hung in the air and filled the deep valleys between the mountains in the distance. Dew glistened on the grass and flowers of the field before me. I stood on the front porch of our home and took it all in -- the beautiful hues of the blushing sky, the gentle sounds of the awakening world, and the sweet, scented breeze of April's buds and blossoms.
When amidst the quiet and through my peaceful state, came a sound quite unfamiliar, and entirely unwelcome. Like thunder, it rumbled in the distance. Like lightning, it cracked through the stillness with a shock that pierced my soul. Like a creek, some sounds were barely heard. And like a wailing infant, its screams tore away at my heart. It was the sound of war.
It was the sound of battle. It was the sound of terror. It was the sound of loss.
It was a sound that meant death.
All through the day I would hear the sound. But in the night, it was worse; it was worse because it was silent... and yet, we were not safe. In the night, the war would come to us. It would come in our dreams. It would enter our hearts. And it would not heed when our souls cried for reprieve from its taunts.
We clung together, my family and I. Through this frightful time, we clung together. Until the day came... no, until they came; I held tightly to the promises we had. Promises of peace from the preacher in town. He said he had it on good authority.
But then they came, and the children were taken away. So many. So young. Why? Some were even ripped from the womb; many had not a chance even for a first breath, a first smile, the first comforting caress against a mother's chest. They all lost their future to the men who had invaded our country; to those instruments of terror.
When we asked the pastor about it... well, I remember his words exactly; I can see the scene in my mind as if I were still there -- as if the shock were still fresh.
We had captured two men, and we had brought them to him. "What should we do with them?" we had asked. These men were trying to rule us, to destroy us by selection and choice, and we could not have it... we simply could not have it.
The man looked at us and wiped his brow. He was nervous, I could tell. He had that strange sort of excitement, although he appeared concerned beneath it all. "I have to tell you up front, both of these guys are my friends," he said. But we just stood and stared. "They both care deeply about America," he continued, his enthusiasm growing with each word. "They are both patriots. They have very different ideas on how America can be strengthened."
We stared at each other in shock. Then we looked at him again. Could a shepherd stand by while his sheep are slaughtered? Would this pastor just stand by while our children were murdered? Where was his sense of justice?
A famous pastor spoke the same words of Obama as the young pastor in the story spoke of the terrorists who had invaded his town, and ravaged the children.
I should hope the story made you angry. I am angry, too. Over 4,000 children are killed each day through abortion, declared legal by rulers of our country. Obama wants to make this even more legal -- he wants to lift the bans in place that protect our unborn, and sign a new legislation, thus enabling more deaths by injustice.
This is so wrong, and yet no one cries out against it to the measure they should. Why not?
If terrorists came into our country and stole our children, our brothers and sisters of the human race; if they ripped them from the womb, would we allow it? Or do only we have that right?
"Friend & patriot;" what does it mean?
Will He?
The young man stood, sword in hand, waiting for the battle that would inevitably ensue. He was in enemy territory; there was no doubt. He had been sent to conquer; and passion for his cause burned like fire in his eyes. So beside his comrades, he waited... still and silent, he waited.
"The best of the best," his commander had called him. Pride swelled in his chest as he recalled the words. Yes, he would give his best -- he would be the best -- for God and for country. This was his duty. This was his call. And he would bear it nobly.
To free the prisoners in chains, to defend the innocent civilians of the towns and villages, to claim back the land once stolen and so wrongly ruled by the rod of injustice; his heart beat strong and brave for this cause -- for these glorious and forbidden dreams. It was not just the dream of his country, of his army; it was his dream -- he lived it out in his mind, he envisioned it in the night... its very mention, even the mildest thought of it, breathed strength into his soul.
Freedom for this people, freedom for this land; he had bound his life to it -- and he would so willingly die for it. His fate, his destiny, would be determined by it. He could not live if others were not free. He could not go free if he did not grant peace to the fearful. He could not go on until he had strengthened the weary with his quest.
At once, a shout from the watchtower startled him back into full awareness of his present surroundings. "The enemy's a mile to the north," announced the watchman.
"Get ready!" called out our young hero to his men. He gripped his own sword tighter as a million thoughts raced through his head, a whispering breeze began to blow, and sweat stung his eyes. His face was creased with fierceness, his body was tense with trembling, and he felt more ready than he had ever felt -- so he fixed his gaze with determined anticipation on the broad horizon, yet unbroken.
Suddenly, a tap on his shoulder and then a sharp blow to his head struck him down unexpectedly. Bowed beneath the pain, and dazed, he turned slowly to see his enemy staring him in the face -- and his men standing by. They just stood there -- unafraid, and unashamed.
Betrayed? The thought struck him harder, pierced deeper, and quelled his most agonizing passion worse than any sword or spear. He had been deceived by the ones he trusted most. And, at long last; though the expected battle had arisen, he knew not how to fight. The enemy was in his midst. The enemy had conquered his heart, his trust -- his fellow soldiers. The enemy had stolen his heart -- and won.
Have we, the youth of this country, had our hearts stolen by the enemy? "The best of the best," we may be; brave and righteous, we may stand; but do we realize the deception and schemes of the enemy in our midst? Or has he become our friend, our fellow soldier of patriotism, our counselor and advisor?
Will the enemy arrogantly break the horizon, troops in tow, and encounter us ready to fight; or will he infiltrate our defenses, tap us on the shoulder, and quickly strike us down?
Will you win... or will he?
You Choose
We sat in a circle. We held hands and prayed. We sang together. And then they came. There were only three of them, but their faces spelled a terror that could not be escaped. The house was set on fire. We could feel the heat. But we never heard sirens. Did no one hear our screams?
The grenades came flying through the windows, a second passed, and then an explosion was felt throughout my being that made my ears ring for hours afterwards. After the second explosion, I could barely even hear my own shouts. My skin blistered and cracked. My eyes stung from the smoke. My heart pounded painfully so that I felt I could barely breathe.
But worst of all, and most horrifying to my senses, was when they dragged me out of the house -- and then they didn't beat me or torture me as I had expected, but instead just stood there... waiting. Waiting for me to die. Two of them tried to look away, but the one stared. He stood and watched me. I was dying. And he stood there and watched me.
"Why?" I cried out. Why was he doing this? It was the cry of my heart and soul. I could barely hear the answer the man closest to me screamed in my ear, but I remember it well. "It's our country. It's our right," were the words he said. But I didn't understand. This had been my home for as long as I could remember. I was human, too -- so didn't I have rights? Shouldn't it be my choice?
Pro-choice literally means that just as Hitler ruled his country, chose the Jews, evicted them from their homes, and marked them for death; the women of our country can rule their bodies, choose the children, abort them from their wombs, and so simply mark them for death.
But what if Muslims, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, or Christians were marked next?
Let's face it: Our rulers rule this country. Our rulers own this land. Our rulers should have the right to choose what we can believe and what we cannot, where we should dwell and where we should not, who can live and who cannot. Shouldn't they? After all, it's their land, isn't it? That's just old-fashioned pro-choice.
But what about you? What do you think? Do the ruled deserve rights, too? Whose choice should it be?
Where Are The Children?
What would you do in such a case of tragedy? Or, perhaps I should rephrase the question: Do you not know that such a tragedy happens daily, and is that why you do not act?Upon entering the house
he at once noticed the silence
"Where are the children?"
the man asked his wife
"I don't know -- they haven't come home yet,"
was her response
More than an hour passed
before they were convinced that something was not right
Long moments had passed
as they told themselves
just what they wanted to hear
but now
the truth was clear
something must be done
Call after call was made to the children's friends
without answer
After that
they called the children's schools
along with the parents of the other children
but no information was to be had
Where could the children be?
Close to panic
and already far distanced from the peaceful norm of daily life
the young couple sat side by side on the sofa
eyes brimming with tears
hands clasped together
unsure of what to do
or even what could be said
The young wife began
to tell a story of one thing or another one of their children had done
just the day before
but before three words were said
she burst into tears
and wept against her husband's shoulder
and for him
it was all he could do
to hold her
as the grief within him swelled within his chest
and drew from him
deep, ragged breaths of anguishWhere are the children?
he wondered again and again
but the moments passed
the hours fell away
the memories haunted him
and slumber overtook him
The next thing he knew
a sudden sound jolted him awake
How long have I slept?
he asked himself as he heard the phone ring again
Leaving his sleeping wife
he grabbed the receiver and walked into the next room
"Hello?"
"We've found your children,"
spoke a gruff voice on the other end
"Where are they?"
"Together"
was the response, nearly whispered
"No, I mean where are they?"
the father asked
trying to keep his voice under control
"What are you willing to pay to bring them home?"
hissed the voice over the line
"What?!"____________________
Over 4,000 children huddled together
afraid of what would come next
Why had they been brought here?
Would anyone come to help them?
Did anyone care that they were here?
Wide-eyed with fear
they sat on the floor
knees drawn to their chests
arms wrapped about themselves
as they tried to stay warm
calm
hopeful
Would freedom come?
The men who had taken them captive
had spoken of death
Were their intentions really that horrible?
And if so, who could save them?
No one even knew that they were missing
either that
or they didn't care enough to do anything about it____________________
The man stood
shaking from head to foot
receiver still in hand
his face a ghastly shade of gray
when his wife walked in the room
She stopped when she saw him
and wrapped her robe tight around her shoulders
"Who was that?"
she asked him hesitantly
voice wavering with uncertainty
His shoulders sagged as he looked on the face of his bride
and felt the weight of the truth he must tell her
"The children are gone,"
were the only words he could muster
Even to his own ears
they sounded little more than a breath
And worse than his own sorrow
more heart-rending than his own anguish
entirely unexpected to his shocked state of mind
was the look on his beloved's face in that awful instant of realization
As she sobbed in his arms
and he felt the intense ache of their loss
the previous day's long and anxious moments of waiting
crossed his mind
Punishing blows of what could have been done
pounded his heart
We knew something was wrong
he thought to himself again and again
Why did we not act?
He knew that question
would pierce his soul
and fill him with regret
for the rest of his life
Over 4,000 children.
Over 4,000 children. That is how many are ripped from the womb, stolen from their future, cut off from light and hope, killed each single day within this country of such promise.
Over 4,000 children.
What will you pay to redeem them from the clutches of death?
Over 4,000 children.
And yet you wait. You lie in slumber, as if unaware of all that you could do to save them.
I ask of you: What would you think of a man who would not even lay his own life down, who would not pay all that he had, to save a child sentenced to death?
And yet, the children die... and you have so much.
Wake up! Purchase their freedom, their right to life.
Over 4,000 children.
Are they not family? Are we not human?
Oh, how must the call come to wake you from your slumber, to bring you to realization of all that could be done? How must it come?
Over 4,000 children.
Will help come in time?
Pray you do.
Terror seizes more each day.
Over 4,000 children.
Pray for those who still remain, that they would outlast the cowardice and preoccupations of our heroes. Pray for them. Pray!
Over 4,000 children.
Stand now. Stand for them -- for innocence and justice, for good and for love. Stand, if not for all that is right, for the sake of your very soul! Stand now. Stand!
I promise you, peace will not come until you do. For you must ask yourself: Should peace be yours when it is not theirs?
Over 4,000 children.
And time ticks by.
Over 4,000 children.
Listen to their cry!
For time ticks by.
And the children's lives hang in the balance.
Yet hope for a hero rests deep within the soul of each.
Over 4,000 children.
And time ticks by.
The children's lives hang in the balance.
They wait for a hero; they dream of a promise; they long for life -- will they die without?
Time ticks by.
Over 4,000 children.
And time ticks by.
Stand now, friend.
Over 4,000 children.
And time ticks by.
Time ticks by.
Time ticks by.
And the children wait...
Time ticks by.
And the children are lost.
Time ticks by.
And you know something is wrong.
When will you act?
At The Hands Of A Ruler Who Thinks It Right
"As an Illinois state senator, Barack Obama twice opposed legislation to define as "persons" babies who survive late-term abortions. ... Mr. Obama said in a speech on the Illinois Senate floor that he could not accept that babies wholly emerged from their mother's wombs are "persons," and thus deserving of equal protection under the Constitution's 14th Amendment.
To Mr. Obama, abortion, or "reproductive justice," is "one of the most fundamental rights we possess." And he promises, "the first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.'"
-EPM
What Is The "Freedom of Choice Act"?
""The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act."
-Barack Obama
From the perspective of history:
"In the fall of 1938, the parents of a five-month-old baby boy wrote to Adolf Hitler. In their letter, they told Hitler that their son was born blind, had a leg and part of an arm missing, and seemed to be mentally impaired. They petitioned Hitler to allow their doctor to kill the child in a merciful manner.
Hitler sent his own doctor to examine the baby. After the doctor confirmed the baby's condition, Hitler granted the parents' request. The doctor administered a lethal drug, and the baby was "put to sleep." The cause of death was recorded as "heart failure," according to the documents at the church cemetery where the baby was buried.
In granting the permission, Hitler saw an opportunity to improve the Aryan race and to save the government money. In October 1939, just one month after war broke out, he authorized a top secret mass-murder program.
The euthanasia, or "mercy death" program, targeted physically and mentally disabled infants, children, teenagers, and adults living in hospitals and institutions. By killing these patients, the Nazis could use the money saved on their care to fund the war effort. It would also free more doctors, nurses, and hospital facilities to care for wounded soldiers.
A new law soon required all nurses and midwives to report deformed newborn babies. Nazi doctors also selected patients considered too physically or mentally unfit to live productive lives. The patients included those who suffered from epilepsy, mental illness, blindness, deafness, mental retardation, and severe physical deformities. In the eyes of the Nazi government, these people were "useless eaters" and a burden to the taxpayer. It simply cost too much to care for them.
The doctors then filled out a questionnaire, describing each selected patient's condition. The questionnaire was forwarded to a panel of three Reich doctors who made a life-or-death decision -- without ever seeing the patient. If the Reich doctors decided that the patient's life was "useless," they prescribed euthanasia by drawing a red cross by the patient's name. If they valued a patient's life as "useful," they drew a blue minus sign to spare the patient."
-Hitler's Youth, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Be sure no wicked man ever meant to be so wicked at his first beginning. But he began with allowing himself some little transgression, and that led on to something greater, and that in time produced something greater still, and thus he became the miserable being that he now is. When Hazael heard from Elisha of the horrible acts that he would one day do, he said with astonishment, "But what is your servant -- a dog, that he should do this gross thing?" (2 Kings 8:13) But he allowed sin to take root in his heart, and in the end he did them all.
... All great buildings are made up of little parts. The first stone is as important as any others. ... The ax in the fable only begged the trees to let him have one little piece of wood to make a handle, and he would never trouble them any more. He got it, and then he soon cut them all down.
-Thoughts for Young Men, by J.C. Ryle
Have You The Courage?
What is Justice?
"Where's Papa going with that ax?" said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
"Out to the hoghouse," replied Mrs. Arable. "Some pigs were born last night."
"I don't see why he needs an ax," continued Fern, who was only eight.
"Well," said her mother, "one of the pigs is a runt. It's very small and weak, and it will never amount to anything. So your father has decided to do away with it."
"Do away with it?" shrieked Fern. "You mean kill it? Just because it's smaller than the others?"
Mrs. Arable put a pitcher of cream on the table. "Don't yell, Fern!" she said. "Your father is right. The pig would probably die anyway."
Fern pushed a chair out of the way and ran outdoors. The grass was wet and the earth smelled of springtime. Fern's sneakers were sopping by the time she caught up with her father.
"Please don't kill it!" she sobbed. "It's unfair."
Mr. Arable stopped walking.
-Charlotte's Web, by E.B. White
Have you the courage of little Fern Arable to fight for the justice you believe in?
What Can I Do?
"Something unusual happened in Denmark during World War II. Hitler's plans to kill the Danish Jews failed. ... That Denmark chose to protect its Jews was an astonishing and extraordinary act. What happened, and why did it happen in Denmark and nowhere else?"____________________ "The story of Jørgen Knudsen, a young ambulance driver, is typical of the spontaneous outpouring of help. On his way to work on the morning of September 29, Knudsen saw some friends stopping people in the streets. When he learned what was happening, he rushed to a telephone booth, tore out the phone book, and went to the garage to pick up his ambulance. He didn't go to work that morning. Instead, he marked any names in the book that he thought were Jewish. Then he drove to their homes to warn them of the impending raid. If someone didn't have a place to hide, he took them to Bispebjerg Hospital where he worked. Knudsen knew that Dr. Karl Køster, who had organized the doctors' protest petition the year before, would help."
____________________ "Danes by the thousands refused to accept that fate for their fellow countrymen. The Jews were, after all, Danes. Whether friends or strangers, they were their neighbors. By resisting, the Danes saved the lives of nearly all of the 8,000 Jews in Denmark."
-Darkness Over Denmark, Ellen Levine
What can you do? How can you fight injustice? How can you take up your sling, the small stones of opportunity, and like David of old, win against the Goliath evil of our time?
Pray for passion. Pray for courage. Pray that justice would rule your heart and soul.
"One person could make all the difference."
-Anonymous
Human?
Science has proven that the young child within the womb is human.
When will our choices and our voices began to prove that we are?
Dream With Me
"[Martin Luther] King [Jr.] once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for comfort and safety.” How can the “Dream” survive if we murder the children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. . . . If the Dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to live, our babies must live. Our mothers must choose life."
-Alveda C. King
Dream with me for the unborn.
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Fivescore years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free; one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination; one hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity; one hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land.
And so we've come here today to dramatize the shameful condition. In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was the promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on the promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children. It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of this moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.
Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content, will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds.
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.
We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto into a larger one.
We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating, "For Whites Only." We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulation. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi; go back to Alabama; go back to South Carolina; go back to Georgia; go back to Louisiana; go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can, and will, be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, that even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed -- we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day, even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day, right there in Alabama, little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with.
With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning -- "my country 'tis of thee; sweet land of liberty; of thee I sing; land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride; from every mountainside, let freedom ring" -- and if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.
Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.
Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado.
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
But not only that.
Let freedom ring from the Stone Mountain of Georgia.
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.
Let freedom ring from every hill and mole hill of Mississippi, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children -- black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics -- will be able to join hands and to sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last; thank God Almighty, we are free at last."
"May God give us the wisdom and the strength to carry forward his unfinished work."
-Coretta Scott King
The Dance
"My little girl,
We have not met yet, but I already Love you. I have so many dreams for you. I look at the possibilities, and I see who you could be. I imagine what we could do together -- the things we would see, the places we would go, and even the talks we would have. I long to meet you and hold you tightly to My Chest -- I long to feel your arms embrace Me, and for you to feel My strong Arms gently surround you. I long to hear your sweet voice. I long to watch you sleep, to await the moment when you awake. I long for you to learn My Name, and to hear Myself called by you. I long for you to run to me with your concerns. I ache that I could comfort you, that I could hold you, that I could comb my fingers through your hair and tenderly sing a lullaby that would soothe all your fears, quell all your questions. I long to play with you, to teach you new things, to proudly discover the pictures you've drawn for Me and the gifts you present to me. I long to give you My Smile of approval. I long for you to share My Joy, that I could share yours. I long to answer your questions, to watch you grow in stature, to tell you how beautiful you've become, and how much it delights Me the ways you've grown with wisdom and compassion into a mature and graceful young woman. I long to watch over you and protect you as you fall in love one day. I long to teach you how to dance -- and to dance with you. Oh, there are so many dreams I have for you! If only you knew, dear sweet one, what a life I would love to give you -- what things I have dreamed for you. As I watch you grow in your mother's womb, I think on these things, and wish so much that I could tell you them all. But most of all, I wish I could tell you, simply, 'I Love you.' I made you for Me. I created you with such care. I touched the small features of your face, held your small hand, and counted the toes of your feet. I formed your heart to welcome Mine; I formed you, dear one, to know Me. And how I ache that you would...
With Tears of Hope,
Your Loving Heavenly Father"
If I Had Known
We sat in the car, in silence. I could remember the last time it was this silent. It was the day I had found out... the truth.
In my mind, I saw the day like one remembers a scene from a movie. Dad was driving -- and he had an expression on his face I had never seen before that day. That expression he always had now. Mom kept her hand on his shoulder, but she was crying. She tried not to, and she hid it pretty well. But I saw her eyes, and her lips trembling -- and I saw the weeping heart beneath it all. For it was on that day that we knew... but with all our might, we fought it. We fought the truth.
Young Joshua and I sat staring out the windows, out into a world now empty of hope. It was just like that day I remembered so well -- except that now he was crying. I couldn't find the words to say. And I thought to myself that it was just like that day... that day I so much wanted to forget. It was just like that day -- except that now he knew. And now it was too late.
When the silence finally broke, I felt that it broke something within my soul. "Why didn't you tell me?" Joshua was saying. "If I had known... If only I had known..." and then his words were taken away by a few jagged breaths before the sobs that racked his body -- and rent my heart with grief.
My brother Joshua had cancer. We hadn't told him. And now it was untreatable. Now he was dying. Now it was too late.
"Try to get a clear view of the evil of sin. Young man, if you only knew what sin is, and what sin had done, you would not think it strange that I exhort you as I do. You do not see it in its true colors. Your eyes are naturally blind to its quilt and danger, and therefore you cannot understand what makes me so anxious about you, Oh, let not the devil succeed in persuading you that sin is but a small, insignificant matter!
Think for a moment what the Bible says about sin; -- how it dwells naturally in the heart of every man and woman alive (Eccles. 7:20; Rom. 3:23), -- how it defiles our thoughts, words, and actions, continually (Gen. 6:4; Matt. 15:19), -- how it renders us all guilty and abominable in the sight of a holy God (Isa. 64:6; Hab. 1:13), -- how it leaves us utterly without hope of salvation, if we look to ourselves (Ps. 143:2; Rom. 3:20), -- how its fruit in this world is shame, and its wages in the world to come, death (Rom. 6:21, 23). Think calmly of all this. I tell you this day, it is not more sad to be dying of cancer, and not to know it, than it is to be a living man, and not know this."
-Thoughts for Young Men, by J.C. Ryle
We cannot begrudge the sibling of this story who would not tell Joshua of his cancer in time for a possible cure if we fail to tell our sisters of the murderous sin in their lives which threatens their very souls.
You know the truth now. Give them a chance to find the cure. Be sure they have a chance at Life.
Where Are The Christians?
1942 GERMANY
The radio in the parlor blares the news of victory after victory by the Nazis. A young man sits by and listens in horror as the reports come in of cities falling, of lives lost, of death and madness rampant across his beloved nation.
"Where are the Christians?" he stands and cries.
The children are hauled off to work camps. The Jews are lined up and shot. The symbol of the Cross is banned from schools. Even places of worship are no longer safe, as they fall, one by one, torched by the enemy to ruins of ashes and rubble.
Where are the Christians?
The cry echoes throughout history as those who profess to be cower and hide and wait for better days. The people's souls are scarred. Their hearts fill with terror. The destruction is boundless, it seems. But who can stop it?
Where are the Christians?
There is a holocaust wrought on our land against the most innocent ones. There is a war waged on our soil that shames our souls before all of Heaven. Don't you hear? The blood of the children cries out! Will we cover our ears and avert our eyes? We can't look the other way, then say that we love rather than hate, if we will not stand for the innocent. Their blood cries out. It cannot be silenced by our hypocrisy. It is not forgotten by the One we love.
"Where are the Christians?" I cry.
But the answer that comes brings me to my knees in despair. Those who claim to be "christian" are murderers, too. Does their stance appall you? Look at your own! Look at your nation! Are we a righteous nation? Are we a part of this nation that is not?
Where are the "christians"?
They are killing our children -- they are aiding the enemy.
Where are the protectors of the children? Where are the Righteous ones of honor and justice and passionate Truth? Are they no more?
Where are the Christians?
The cry rings throughout history as a call to you. It lingers in the clear, clean air of peace and in the smoke filled air of war-lit skies.
Where are the Christians?
The Ten Commandments are gone from our schools and our courts. Prayer is banned from the classrooms and playing fields of our young people and heroes alike. Is this so different from what happened not so long ago? Do the people of professed conviction still fail to fight for what is right and good and pure?
Where are the Christians?
We are not so safe from the war that is waged against the weak. With medical costs rising and national funds running low, who do you think will be next on the list of lives unwanted by society? Who is next to lose their rights to live? We are. And if not us, our children.
Where are the Christians?
Are they sequestered away in churches? Where is His Love in our lives if we forget the lives that are lost and the blood that is shed? In the words of a young resistance fighter of WW2: "Should we stand here with empty hands at the end of the war when they ask the question: 'And what did you do?'"
I say, "No!" Let us not be as apathetic as those who came before -- as those who failed to act. Let us be just and non-violent in our approach, but let us also be courageous and steadfast and relentless in our passion to overcome the evil that rules our nation! Let us lay down our lives at the altar and fight for the children, fight against the evil that slays their lives and their souls with the help of religious cowardice and apathy.
Where are the Christians?
On their knees, I pray! We need to pray Psalm 51 daily until we are clean of guilt and bloodshed and cowardice and greed. We need to willingly sacrifice of ourselves. We need to go to the Cross and lay down our lives for the children -- spend our lives as He spent His for us. We need to have a heart for the children that reveals His Heart to them in depth.
Where are the Christians?
The cry resounds throughout America, throughout this beloved nation, under God, as lives are lost and innocence is destroyed.
Will you answer?
"The one condition necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
-Edmund Burke
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
