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.

The Nobel Prize and the value of explanation

There is a memory that I have that still conjures a sense of magic in my mind. Forty-seven years ago, I accompanied my grandmother into a men's clothing store in Claremont, NH. This was the big city, filled with shops and stores and fancy dressed shop keepers who greeted customers with broad smiles. This particular men's clothing store, however, had something no other store in the area could boast; as you approached the entrance a small black circle at the top of a shiny silver post saw our arrival and an invisible doorman opened the door for us. Obviously the rest of the store was incredibly boring to a four year old but this 'magic eye' captured and held my attention. What did it see when it looked at me? Did it know I was four years old? Did it see both me and my grandmother? Did it remember me from my last trip to the city?

Jump ahead nearly twenty years and my curiosity about God's creation had led me to books on astronomy, theoretical physics and astrophysics. I enjoyed reading the biography of one of my heroes and Nobel prize winner, Dr. Einstein and of his many contributions to physics on both an atomic and galactic scale. I was shocked to discover that Dr. Einstein did not win his Nobel prize for the General or Special Theories of Relativity as one might assume. Amazingly, he was awarded the coveted prize for explaining the photo-electric effect. That's right, Dr. Einstein knew how and what the magic eye from the men's clothing store saw and was able to explain it. Please understand, Dr. Einstein did not invent the photo-electric effect, that was done by other scientists, but he was able to explain the effect and the explanation was of such value that it won the highest recognition of a grateful world.

I was reminded of these events just this week as the winners of this years Nobel prizes were announced. Picking winners is a daunting task for the Nobel committee because the winners must be folks whose contributions have historical significance BUT they must be alive. The Nobel is never awarded to a dead person. The latest winner, as of this writing, is Gerhard Ertl of Germany. He has won the Nobel Prize in chemistry for being able to explain chemical processes on solid surfaces.

Dr. Ertl can explain how catalysts in automobiles work, how fuel cells function and why iron rusts. Let me point out again that Dr. Ertl did not invent the catalytic converter or fuel cells or rust. His gift to science is his ability to explain the process. This is a pattern you will find over and over amongst the winners picked by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The Nobel prize is really a measure of mankind's value on explanation. This value tells us something about how conventional knowledge is accepted and perpetuated. If we would reward a man with 1.5 million dollars because he can explain why rust happens, imagine what an explanation of the beginning of life would be worth. How valuable would an explanation of evil be, or of man's inhumanity toward man?

The reason that explanation is so valuable is because apart from the explanation science is merely trial and error. That's right, the photo-electric effect was discovered through trial and error. Chemical processes on solid surfaces were discovered through trial and error as were MOST of the great discoveries of science. What is of greater value than the discovery is the explanation of the mechanics involved and the significance of the event. Until the explanation is revealed the event remains an ACCIDENT and no scientist can ever be content with an accident, or can he?

If ones worldview is a rejection of theism, a rebellion against the Sovereign God of Scripture than not only will the accidental be tolerated but it will be advanced and protected politically. Never mind that the mechanism for evolution, natural selection and mutation, cannot be demonstrated and it's irrational. Science is strangely content to avoid a Biblical explanation for life and it's non material aspects even in theory; in the case of evolution science is at BLISS with accident.

The Bible is rejected, why? The Bible is a book of revelation, a book of information and most significantly to the scientist, a book of explanation. Why will these doctors who place so much value on the explanation of an invisible doorman reject the explanation of invisible good and invisible evil, of non-corporal information and the invisible workings of providence? The reason is clear, if God is in the equation then all mankind is responsible to Him. If God is the explanation then all have sinned and fall short of his glory. If God is creator, then man is a creature and must step down from his throne built on trial and error.

When the evolutionist turns his back on explanation in favor of accident, he proves that his only motivation is a rejection of the Creator.

The Law and Love (Part 3 of 3)

In the final segment of this series we look at our response to God's love expressed through the giving of His law.


The Law as an Instrument of Love
We began with the understanding that God gave us his commandments out of love but we sinned against him by breaking his commandments. We brought a curse upon ourselves, but God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, God sent his son to pay the penalty for our sins and remove the curse.

Jesus Christ was the perfect image of God because he kept the law perfectly. He never sinned. His righteousness made him the only possible representative to stand in the place of sinners and receive the full wrath of God in our place. If we realize that Jesus Christ took the penalty for your sins, died and rose again in victory then how can we possibly express our gratitude for giving us new life?

Jesus didn’t make it complicated, he said, “If you love me, then keep my commandments.” God loves us by giving us his commandments and we love him by keeping them. When we behave like we belong to His family then we exalt him before a fallen world.

But not only are the commandments given in love and obeyed in love but Jesus said that love and obedience are the same thing. When our Lord was asked, what is the greatest commandment, he answered:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Matt. 22:37-40

Bishop Augustine condensed it even more, he said, “Love God and do as you please.” The apostle Paul said in 2 Cor. 5: 14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

The love of Christ controls us, the commandments and our love for Christ cause us to no longer live for ourselves.

I want to leave you with a picture of a kite.
My family went to fly kites over in the park. My three year old son and six year old daughter had some pretty generic delta wing kites which worked fine and they brought them joy. My twelve year old daughter had this great nylon kite that looked like an Iguana. It was a beautiful piece of artwork. It had an enormous tail and perfectly balanced to ride the wind.

It flew amazingly high and it danced and responded effortlessly to each gust of wind that moved it. It expressed such freedom and grace as it beautifully lived up to its expectations.

Suddenly we heard my daughter cry, “Oh no!” I looked up and the kite seemed to be fine but now I noticed that the string in her hand was no longer pointing skyward toward the kite. The string had broke. The kite danced gracefully only a moment longer and then began to tumble and flip and flop and then fall.

You see, even the finest built kite is useless without a string to constrain and control it.

We are so much like that kite. We are designed for greatness. We, like our heavenly father, are able to reason, to make choices, to love, to work, to build, to lead and create. We love freedom but for many we get confused about what freedom should look like.

Only the blood of Jesus Christ sets us free from sin and the penalty of death. After that, he gives us the freedom not to sin and to live an abundant life. Now that life includes struggle, that’s true, for in this world there will be troubles, but be of good cheer for Christ has overcome the world and the penalty for your sin. When we fail to be obedient, we confess our sin and rely on Christ’s perfect obedience to the law.

Jesus said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. God’s commandments and our loving obedience to them form the string on the kite. Without it, we can never live as the true children of God.

Prayer: We pray with the sweet psalmist of old that you would this day open our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things out of your law.

The Law and Love (Part 2 of 3)

We continue with a three part series on The Law and Love. This portion takes an overview of the Ten Commandments to glean what the Decalogue tells us of God's character and our nature.

One
“You shall have no other Gods before me.” What does that reveal about God?

He is One, he is the only God, there are no other so-called 'gods'.
He is the Creator
There is no authority higher than God
There is no judge above God
God alone is worthy of our worship

What does it say about us?
If God is the only God then we are NOT God.
We as creatures owe everything to the Creator.
We owe God our love and obedience.
Our sin deserves just punishment from a just God.
We owe God our worship.

Two
“You shall not make for yourself any image and bow down to worship it.”
The first commandment tells us to worship God ALONE.
The second commandment tells us how to worship God.

Let me tell you about idolatry. You probably have a definition in your mind that idolatry is worshipping false gods and you are correct. The first commandment deals with that aspect of idolatry.
The second command warns us against worshipping the TRUE God falsely.

When Moses came down from the mountain with the tables of the law, he found the Israelites worshiping a golden calf. The golden calf did not represent a false God, it represented Yahweh. Now, do you know where in scripture that God said to make a golden calf to symbolize Him? NOWHERE!!!

Now this is important because we see this commandment broken everywhere. The Israelites wanted to express worship to Yahweh; they wanted to LOOK on Him and BOW to Him and GIVE themselves to Him, but God is Spirit, God is invisible. The people wanted a visible, touchable POINT OF CONTACT.

Idolatry is seeking a point of contact with God that is not prescribed in His Word. There is only one point of contact that is acceptable - the Word of God itself.

The living Word of God is where we are to meet God, it is where He reveals himself, it is where we learn of our fallen nature and His atonement for our sins. We are to be a people of the BOOK. The Word of God sets us apart from the worldlings. We are to worship God in spirit and in TRUTH! God’s Word is the TRUTH!

THREE
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.”
The third commandment is a warning not to use God’s name except in an honoring and respectful way.

Wow! How do you swim against a tidal wave of a polluted culture slapping you in the face daily. You all know that it is wrong to use God’s name or the name of Jesus as a curse, a swear word. Try and find a popular movie today that doesn’t do that.

A person doesn’t have to be angry to break this commandment. People all over America over use the word ‘like’
You know, like, it’s everyones favorite, like, adjective for, like, for adding emphasis, it’s like, crazy.

After “like” it’s “Oh my god.” In excitement, in joy, in surprise, in wonder, litlle kids to the elderly respond with “Oh my god.” THAT is vanity, that trivializes the name that is above all names, the name by which we are saved, the name of the Creator and sustainer of life.

It doesn’t stop with words. If you call your self a Christian then you have taken the name of Christ. In other words, if you have a fish on your car, don’t drive as if God placed you above the law and gave you ownership of the road. “Look at me, I’m a jerk! Oh, and I’m a Christian too.!” “I’m a jerk for Jesus.” Don’t stain the family name. I’ll tell you what, when we repeat the Lord’s Prayer and say, “Hallowed by thy name”, “may your name be kept holy”. That means you’re praying that his name will be honored in everything YOU do and everything that YOU say. That should cause you to pause and consider your ways.

FOUR
“Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.”
Six days you should work but don’t ever complain that you haven’t time to spend with God in His Word or fellowship with the saints. You need to hear the Gospel every week. God has given us a day to break away from our work and school routine to seek Him as families and hear His Word. The sabbath is a gift.

FIVE
“Honor your father and mother.”
The fifth commandment is about authority. God has established order in the universe. The sun, the moon, the earth and the stars all move in an orderly manner.

God has authority over all things. God has established elders over his local, visible church. They are responsible for the spiritual growth, protection and discipline of the church family according to the Word and the church’s confession.

God has made husbands responsible for the spiritual growth, protection and purity of their wives. God has made dads and moms responsible for growing their children in the faith. Everyone here is a child and most of you are parents. God works through families and he established an order so give honor where honor is due.

SIX
“You shall not murder.”
Never take the life of another person without just cause. Why?

The abortion debate back in the 70s required those who wanted to kill the pre-born to invent new language and new definitions. Some decided that for life and personhood to exist there had to be a quality present they called ‘viability’. Life is not life until it can live outside the womb, that’s viability. Outside the womb it’s a baby, inside the womb it’s a ‘tissue mass’.

As long as the head is still in the womb, it’s not a person. Partial birth abortion demonstrates the incredible absurdity of this kind of languge and the horrific implications of man defining personhood. God defines PERSONHOOD! Genesis 9:6: “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”

A person is one who bears the image of God. Personhood has nothing to do with viability or quality of life, it is about the image of God. Every human, believer and rebel, carries the image of God. It’s stamped on us; we can’t escape it. It is that stamp, that image, that gives man worth and dignity - every man, woman and child. That’s regardless of skin shade, regardless of income, regardless of IQ. Everyone is an image bearer and to attack the one who bears God’s image is to attack God himself.

The sixth commandment is about how pro-life God is and how pro-life we are not. You haven’t murdered, good! But have you insulted someone this week? Are you holding a grudge against a brother or sister in Christ? If so, you’re not as pro-life as you think you are.

Jesus said that if you insult your brother then you have broken with the family resemblance. Love you neighbor as yourself and love your brothers and sisters in Christ MORE. Don’t hold back from doing good for your neighbor, for that is sin as well. The sixth commandment is about recoginizing and acknowledging the image of God in every man. We summarize it by saying, “You shall not murder.”

SEVEN
“You shall not commit adultery.”

I could write for pages on this one. Marriage is holy. The family is the fundamental unit within the kingdom of God on earth. Marriage is modelled after the covenant between God and His people. To break a marriage covenant is to mock God’s covenant, for what God has brought together let no man tear apart.

The family is where we learn of God and his Word and his purpose. The family is God’s model for too many biblical principles to try and mention here. The level of attack that the family is under today is the proof of the immense importance and value that God has placed on the family. Fathers and mothers, you have no greater priority than the strength and well being of your family. If you don’t recognize this and get your friends to recognize it then we will lose America.

Children, if you do not see the strategic importance of honoring your father and mother then we, the church, will lose our place as salt and light.

The seventh commandment is “You shall not commit adultery” but it is about protecting and strengthening family.

EIGHT
“You shall not steal.”

Isn’t it something, God values the private and personal property of his children. He wants us to value other peoples property as well. I won’t run down the many ways we steal - on the job, at tax time and so on. Stealing violates our role as God’s stewards and it is a sin against God because it is a sin against our neighbor.
You shall not steal.

NINE
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

Inititially this command applied to the court room. But where would we be without the truth. We, as believers, rely on the truth to spread the gospel. We have the source of Truth, the Bible. God values the truth. We worship in truth. Jesus is the way and the truth. Our Father does not lie, his children should follow His example.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

TEN
“You shall not covet.”
We musn’t covet the possessions of others. Why? Because it questions God’s sovereignty. God tells us he will take care of us. We are so much more valuable than a sparrow that sells for two cents and God takes care of them. He has given you everything you need to live a righteous life, honoring to him. He has given your neighbor everything your neighbor needs for the same purpose.

To crave what God has given your neighbor is to question his love and care for you - you question God’s plan and his promises - you cast doubt on His Word.


In the final segment of this series we will consider what is to be our response to God's law.Go to Part Three