BETRAYERS OF THE FAITH

October 15,2015

            One of the reasons this country is in such dismal moral and spiritual condition is because of the “clergy” in this country who have absolutely betrayed the One whose name they besmirch.  These so-called Christians embrace an agenda which smacks of humanism and atheism far more than it does of Jesus.  These progressive hacks who use Christianity as a cloak for their actions are despicable.  Paul will describe them in this way in Titus 1:16 – They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

 I realize these are harsh words, but the evil that is being prattled about by these shysters needs to be revealed.  They are gutting the heart of Christianity in this country.  For years they have been lining up to be interviewed by a liberal press, eager to get their fifteen minutes of fame as they degrade and decry the God they claim to serve, His people, and His word.  It really sticks in my craw when one of these hypocrites piously spout their tripe as they scrupulously defend the morally and spiritually indefensible.

The latest outrage, and I do not use that word lightly, occurred this month in Cleveland, Ohio.  There, a band of these misfits chose to bless a Cleveland abortion clinic – see Clergy group blesses Cleveland abortion clinic .  Yes, you read it right.  A place that murders babies was blessed by these quislings who, to their shame, claim to do so in the name of Christ.  Excuse me, but if that doesn’t border on blasphemy, what does? 

Quoting from the article:  “The Rev. Harry Knox, president of the national Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, said the service was spurred by “renewed attacks on reproductive health rights” and the anti-abortion activities of “far too many religious people.”  Consider this bizarrely twisted idiocy with me for a moment.

First of all, are you as sick as I am of hearing this blather about “reproductive choice,” and “reproductive health rights”? Ripping babies to pieces to remove them from their mother’s wombs, or scalding them to death in saline solution within the womb, has absolutely NOTHING to do with reproductive rights. The reproductive right was exercised and enjoyed when the woman chose to have sex with a man.  The issue is whether that right was carried out in a moral and responsible manner, not whether the right was exercised. Choosing to slaughter an innocent human life in utero has NOTHING to do with reproductive choice.  It has to do with the cold-blooded choice to destroy the life of a helpless, defenseless, voiceless human being.  I am outraged by the callous word play these charlatans use in an attempt to sanitize and defend something that is unclean and indefensible.

Secondly, did you notice the usual condemnation by these jokers of “far too many religious people”?  Those of us who are Christians, who value human life, and who find abortion reprehensible and indefensible are classified by this enlightened piece of work as misguided, bigoted, zealots.  One of Rev. Knox’s cohorts in this sham, a United Methodist minister by the name of the Reverend Laura Young, put it this way: “We’re doing this because too many religious people are hurling shame and hate at women seeking abortion, when we should be offering compassion, care and spiritual healing.” So those of us who oppose murdering babies for profit with the excuse they’re inconvenient are haters and shamers?  I don’t know about you, but I am hurling shame at abortion and its providers.  Absolutely and unequivocally.  I hate that such a moral betrayal and travesty is occurring in our country.  I don’t hate the women who are aborting their babies.  I pity them.  And we should offer them compassion, care, and spiritual healing, BUT NOT A CONDONING OF THAT WHICH IS UNJUSTIFIABLE AND SINFUL!

Whether from the apologists for the LGBTQ crowd or these charlatans in religious garb with their fancy titles (and generally they are one and the same), you hear the same nonsense spouted over and over again.  They claim to be the voice of reason, of love, of acceptance, of inclusion.  Anyone who would condemn fornication or abortion is the voice of judgment and hatred and shame. They wear their crosses around their necks and insist that God will accept the unrepentant sinner in his or her sin. If one claims to be a Christian that is all that matters.  “Lifestyle” (another progressive code word for blatantly sinning) is irrelevant.  You can party and fornicate and obliterate the inconvenient results and God will welcome you with open arms.  That is literally a lie from the pit of Hell (see Rom 1:18-32; 1 Cor 6:9-20; Gal 5:19-21; 2 Pet 2:12-22; John 8:44). 

There is a picture that accompanies this article.  It shows several of the participants with their vestments and white collars joining hands with smiles on their faces as they demonstrate.  Signs behind them proclaim Pro-faith, Pro-family, Pro-choice.  Off to one side in the picture is a little child who doesn’t appear to be more than four or five years old holding one of those signs.  I just wonder if that child really knew what those adults beside her were advocating, that is, the right of her Mommy to have killed her before she was born, if she would agree?   The little girl appears to be black.  Do you suppose she is aware that in New York City, according to 2012 statistics from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, there were 31,328 black babies aborted and only 24,758 live births?  Does that cute little child have the slightest clue these smiling ogres in their vestments standing beside her are encouraging a genocidal elimination of her race in the name of love?  When she grows up is she really cognizant they hope she’ll “choose” to destroy one or more of her offspring in the name of “reproductive choice”?

We are witnessing a litany of “low” days in our culture.  This gathering in Cleveland, Ohio on October 8, 2015 to ask our God to bless an abortion clinic is definitely one of them.

             

A GENERATION OF BARBARIANS

October 12, 2015

            The Greeks thought the language of the people outside of their realm sounded nonsensical, strange, and ignorant.  They ridiculed it by referring to it as “barbarous,” mimicking with that term the coarseness they perceived in the language.  From this root would come our modern term “barbarian”: a word which speaks of the uncivilized and uncultured who would destroy whatever they encounter.

            Today, in this country, I believe we are now raising successive generations of barbarians.  I’m not using the term pejoratively, but rather descriptively.  The word very accurately describes the way our culture has gone.  And the trajectory towards barbarism has not been accidental.  It has taken years of concentrated effort on the part of many for us to reach this nadir in the existence of our country and culture.  But I believe we are here.  No longer, as the movie of a few years ago asserted, are the barbarians merely at the gates.  They are now among us.  They are us.  And I place no blame upon these barbarians.  It’s really not their fault.  They literally don’t know any better.  Raised in a coarse and vulgar environment in which evil is celebrated and perversity honored and praised, why should we expect anything else?

            Gangs of young males now roam the streets of our cities, slaughtering each other at a horrifying pace.  They have no conscience and evince little remorse when they are caught and punished for their crimes.  Daily they are breaking into our homes, hijacking our automobiles, raping our women, and robbing the innocent on the streets.  How else could one possibly describe them except as barbarians?  The only difference between them and their predecessors in history is location.  Their callousness to human suffering; their viciousness and rage against those around them is no different.

            Our colleges and universities have for years been training highly educated, technically sophisticated barbarians with business degrees and MBA’s.  These barbarians in fancy suits and thousand dollar shoes are destroying us financially as they pillage our banks and businesses.  Operating without moral or ethical boundaries, our government has been unable to write laws fast enough to stop them from grossly abusing the system.  They can afford to purchase a façade of civility.  They live in their ocean view estates, and have educated themselves to know which wine goes with what course, but they are still no more than barbarians feasting on the spoils of their carnage.

            I walked into Walmart early in the morning a few Saturdays ago and encountered one of the most egregious examples of bizarre deliberate mutilation of the human body I have seen.  This poor barbarian couldn’t have been more than in his late twenties.  He was a big man both in height and girth.  From the top of his head to his feet every piece of flesh that was available for viewing was covered with multi-colored tattoos.  His earlobes hung nearly to his shoulders, pierced and filled with rings inches in diameter.  There were studs and rings protruding from his eyebrows, lips, cheeks, and ears.  He looked freakish.  I literally wondered if he hadn’t come early to avoid scaring small children, because I really think he would.  What would possess anyone to so deliberately mutilate themselves?  He is a poster child for the barbaric self-mutilation that a generation of barbarians have chosen to glorify.

The women are no less barbaric.  They have been brainwashed into believing that slut like dress and behavior is somehow glamorous and empowering.  At a funeral I conducted  the other day, I was shocked at the dress, or lack thereof, of several of the younger women in attendance.  They were dressed more like street walkers than mourners.  And lest I be accused of being old and cynical, I had several others in attendance, some of whom were contemporaries of these women, making the same comment.  Once again, I’m lamenting not blaming.  These poor young women are clueless as to how a lady is to dress.  Their mothers clearly have not taught or modeled modesty for them.  The example set before them in the media is by female barbarians who make their living by baring their flesh for a price.  All they are doing is mimicking what they see glorified instead of vilified daily.

            The church I’m privileged to preach for has a very active prison ministry at a women’s prison here in Oklahoma.  I’m out there an average of twice a month to preach and conduct baptisms.  My heart breaks at what I’m seeing.  Young women who ought to be in college or clerking at the local grocery store are behind bars.  They have been deemed too dangerous to be set loose in society.  At eighteen or twenty they are already hardened criminals.  Starving for love and hope in a world that has never offered them either, it is at once rewarding and heartbreaking to see them respond to the message that God loves them and their lives matter.  Raised as barbarians they have never been gifted with faith or hope.  Their view of life is too often that either you use others to get what you want or you get used.  Most have been abused physically, sexually, and emotionally.  They have no more concept of Biblical love than the man in the moon.

            As you listen to polls which show increasing tolerance and even approval for gay marriage, transgender rights, and legalized drug use there should be no surprise in light of the increasing number of barbarians who are now being polled.  After a concerted effort over the last fifty years to drive God out of our culture, we are now seeing the fruits of that effort.  Young people whose parents were raised with no moral or ethical standards are now being turned loose on the world without a clue as to a transcendent standard of right and wrong.  How could their parents teach them that of which they have no knowledge?  We have emptied our churches and driven God from our schools.  We have made heroes out of moral cretins and vilified anyone who would uphold a moral standard.  We have tethered our children to “smart” phones that are tools for the dissemination of a cesspool of information from pornography to Facebook.  Should we be shocked and surprised when they embrace and support that which stands in direct opposition to the will of Almighty God?

            The Bible makes it clear that we reap what we sow.  We have spent years in this country and culture sowing to the wind.  It should surprise none of us that we now reap the whirlwind. 

            Allow me to share a final illustration of the depths to which our culture has now descended.  I stood in one of the grocery aisles at Walmart awhile back (if you want a quick take on the barbarity that exists in our culture today just visit a Walmart) and listened to a foul-mouthed female who couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen inform the two young male barbarians who were with her that she wasn’t sure but what she was a (blank) lesbian!  What struck me, besides the vulgarity of the whole situation, was how totally comfortable the three of them were with their coarseness.  There was absolutely no shame or reticence about what was going on.  Quite the opposite.  They were obviously loud and proud in their barbarism.  That others were in the aisle meant absolutely nothing.  “Common decency” is a concept with which these young barbarians are totally unfamiliar.

            I take comfort in the knowledge that not all today are being raised as barbarians.  I see Christian parents doing their best to bring up their children in the ways of the Lord.  With great fortitude and courage, with tremendous sacrifice and love, they are seeking to pass on to their children a legacy of godly principles and values.  But it is undeniably true that they are seeking to raise their children in Sodom.

            I have heard candidates for President talk about making America great again.  I wish they would set their sights on something far more important – making America good again.  I’m afraid there’s not a chance in the world she will ever be great again until she is first good.  Barbarians know how to hate and do damage.  They know how to rob and take and cheat and intimidate.  They know how to destroy.  They don’t have a clue about how to build.   When judgment comes on this country, and it will, the only hope we will have is that enough Christians will have survived to have a moral basis for building back.  I pray for the sake of our country that will be so.