It's Earth Day

Here are some Scriptures for your meditation on the occasion of earth day:

Psalm 57:5
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

Psalm 33:8
Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!

Psalm 33:1 Shout for joy in the Lord, O you righteous!
Praise befits the upright.
2 Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;
make melody to him with the harp of ten strings!
3 Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.

4 For the word of the Lord is upright,
and all his work is done in faithfulness.
5 He loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.

6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and by the breath of his mouth all their host.
7 He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap;
he puts the deeps in storehouses.

8 Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!
9 For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.

10 The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
11 The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.
12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people whom he has chosen as his heritage!

13 The Lord looks down from heaven;
he sees all the children of man;
14 from where he sits enthroned he looks out
on all the inhabitants of the earth,
15 he who fashions the hearts of them all
and observes all their deeds.
16 The king is not saved by his great army;
a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
17 The war horse is a false hope for salvation,
and by its great might it cannot rescue.

18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
19 that he may deliver their soul from death
and keep them alive in famine.

20 Our soul waits for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
21 For our heart is glad in him,
because we trust in his holy name.
22 Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us,
even as we hope in you.

Psalm 57:5
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

Hab. 2:18 “What profit is an idol
when its maker has shaped it,
a metal image, a teacher of lies?
For its maker trusts in his own creation
when he makes speechless idols!
19 Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake;
to a silent stone, Arise!
Can this teach?
Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
and there is no breath at all in it.
20 But the Lord is in his holy temple;
let all the earth keep silence before him.”

Psalm 57:5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

Amen

The Right to Privacy: Not As Weak As It Looks (in the abortuary)

We are in the process of adopting three wonderful children through the foster care special needs program. It's been a long and grueling three year ordeal but well worth the wait. In order to become foster parents we have had the local police, the county sheriff and a federal agency conduct background checks of my wife and me. We've surrendered our finger prints and left no secret untold in interviews with the case worker.

We gladly give up our privacy for the sake of the safety of the children. We are all aware of the abuses within the foster care system that have made such bureaucratic vigilance necessary. It's not just foster care, homeland security has also given the government the nerve to ask us to give up more privacy for the sake of safety, especially the children. Our phones can be tapped, we may be searched, our identity is put at risk in order to keep America safe.

I was meditating on this disturbing trade off of privacy for safety and how privacy does not enjoy the level of importance it once did. In our present culture, privacy is worthy of discounting in order to preserve life. Unless, and this is a monstrously big 'unless', privacy is the excuse by which a baby is murdered by a doctor or clinician. "Hold on, full stop!", my brain cried, privacy is STILL very much protected and exalted and propagated in the culture of baby murder. Privacy is that painfully, thin thread that 'Roe vs Wade' hung the killing of an unborn baby upon. Privacy isn't eroding in the abortuary, privacy is sacrosanct and untouchable inside the abortion clinic.

Somehow, the 'liberty' clause of the fourteenth amendment was twisted and deformed by liberal jurists to mean 'right to abort'. As a result we hear people today speak of 'legal abortion'. Where? The lawyers and judges played with and changed the meanings of words - words like 'life', 'liberty' and 'privacy' but no law was passed that made murder legal.

I used to shy away from calling abortion murder. Calling someone a 'murderer' is not a very winsome technique for winning opponents but I've just grown tired of the word games. Murder is the taking of a life without just cause; that's a simple enough definition. I'm not anti-death or anti-killing. Death is a part of life and killing is sometimes necessary. There are those who justly deserve to be killed. I am anti-murder. Men, women, children and babies should not be killed unjustly.

I'm not pro-life either. At least I'm not any more pro-life than the average abortion supporter. Everyone is for life. For the believer life is an opportunity to serve and glorify God; for the unbeliever, as the humorist has said, life is nature's way of keeping meat fresh. Either way, life is a good thing.

I'm pro-dignity of mankind. All men are created in God's image and that image should be recognized, respected and protected (Genesis 9:6). Every human has a dignity that comes from God and should be treated as such. If one man murders another he has shown a total disregard for the image of God and should, himself, be put to death. Executing the murderer is the means for protecting and giving weight to the dignity of the image of God in man.

In as much as abortion is the taking of a life unjustly, it is murder. Murder has never been legal and therefore abortion has never been legal. Yes, there are cowardly lawyers and judges that will not prosecute murder that involves an unborn baby, but that doesn't make murder legal. We are just playing with words and murdering babies. In one room a doctor has delivered all but the head of a nine month 'fetus' whom he now kills with scissors to the back of his skull. In another room doctors work tirelessly to preserve the life of a 23 week preemie, a little person. Now tell me with a straight face that we don't play games with words.

I'm tired of incrementalism too. Pro-life groups spend millions of dollars to force legislation that certain things must be done before an abortion can take place. The pregnant woman must be informed about the development of the fetus; the parents of the pregnant girl must be notified, etc. You know what? I don't care how many hoops the pregnant girl has to jump through if it all ends with another baby being murdered. Do "a", "b" and "c" and then it's ok to murder the baby? NO! I'm not playing that game anymore! I will not play nice.

Abortion is illegal, always has been illegal, and I challenge the lawyers and judges to start prosecuting murder wherever it happens. Uncle Sam, please don't give me that argument about the rights to privacy protecting the mothers choice, you have lost the privilege to boast of privacy. Make a choice lawmakers, you are either for privacy or you are not - you will either prosecute murder or you will not. Until you choose, more babies will be murdered and privacy is dying the death of a million paper cuts.

The Critic Goes To Church

Anyone who goes to church looking for opportunities to criticize the service, will find ample opportunities to do so in any church. Anyone who goes to church looking for opportunities to worship, will likewise always find opportunities to do so.

As much as a church does NOT give opportunities to worship then it deserves the attack of the critic. The only valid criteria for criticizIng the 'worship' service is whether or not worship is taking place. God is seeking worshippers not critics. The critics will move on to the next church until they find a church that will worship THEM; unfortunately, that church is not hard to find.