Wednesday, January 22, 2020, 7:17 pm | Randy Thomasson
At my two appointments this morning at secular businesses, I was asked the obligatory question, “How are you?” And I answered, “Thankful to Jesus, and a little sad.”
When they asked why I was sad, I held up my phone and showed them that 61 million pre-born babies have been killed in 47 years of Roe v. Wade. Then we had a little talk about it, because this shocking fact made them sad too.
These sobering statistics make me hunger for the day when Roe v. Wade is overturned. What about you? And what will life be like in America if and when this unconstitutional 1973 ruling, which permitted Americans to abort their unwanted children, is overturned?
Here are 10 likely outcomes:
1. Innocent babies will be saved. If the current tally is “2,362 abortions daily and 98 abortions per hour every hour in the United States,” I believe a post-Roe nation will decrease the baby killings by at least half, but not totally eliminate them, because of Democrat-run, pro-abortion states.
2. Creator God will be pleased with America’s repenting of the bloodguilt of legalized murder. The Old Testament explains how a land is cursed when it is full of bloodguilt. So I know God can bless America again when America repents of abortion.
3. America’s pro-life ethic will be greatly strengthened. If and when a future U.S. Supreme Court strikes down Roe, it will obviously give people more confidence to think and speak that abortion is wrong. Even pro-abortion people will have to say abortion’s against the law, which will help move the pendulum even further toward majority pro-life values.
4. As respect for innocent human life increases, murders of people outside the womb will decrease. It is simply logical for a culture that believes pre-born humans have the intrinsic right to life to believe the same for people already born. Expect murder of adults to drop when murder of babies drop.
5.The need to adopt children will skyrocket. When millions of babies are put up for adoption instead of aborted, the Church needs to step up and fulfill the command to care for orphans (James 1:27). Post-Roe, this means the average Christian family will have at least one adopted child — a new new norm to embrace for the sake of love and legacy.
6. More pastors will speak out for innocent human life and against abortion. When abortion is legally called wrong, previously-afraid pastors will begin to say it’s wrong too. If they don’t, they are more cowardly than you or I thought, since opposing abortion will immediately be easier.
7. When abortion is outlawed, the economy will improve. Under most conditions, population growth improves a nation’s economy. Numerically, population growth nearly always boosts production, while lower population tends to lessen production.
8. Planned Parenthood abortionists will lose even more government money. When Roe v. Wade is finally struck down, all federal funding of abortion and abortionists will also be dismantled, legally or legislatively or both. What a moral taxpayer victory this will be!
9. Many Democrat-controlled states will go rogue. In Democrat trifecta states (where the governor, and both houses of the state legislature, are Democrat-controlled), there will likely be rebellion and increased civil disobedience to try to keep abortion clinics open and to distribute abortion pills. There are 15 Democrat-controlled states where this could happen: California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, Hawaii, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, and Virginia.
10. A pro-life president and Congress is more likely. Yes, pro-aborts will try to make the next presidential election all about abortion and the power of the president to nominate and the U.S. Senate to confirm federal judges. But the nationwide law would be solidly on the side of pro-life candidates, and pro-abortion Democrats will be more identified as lawbreakers. This will likely create a new pro-life political dynamic that will increase pro-life representation in both houses of Congress, and which could swing “Democrat” states, such as Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia, back to pro-lifers. And if there’s a strongly pro-life president, he’ll enforce America’s new pro-life law in every state, including those with Democrat trifectas. He’ll also slash school funding unless government-run schools cease to teach children abortion is acceptable, or refer children for surgical or chemical abortions.
Please join me in hungering, praying, and working for an end to abortion in America!
And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground. So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand.” Genesis 4:10-11
Monday, January 20, 2020, 12:41 pm | Randy Thomasson
Do you see people’s souls?
As a want-to-be disciple of Jesus Christ, I want to see people’s souls, to motivate me to love them more deeply.
But I also want to see people’s souls because I don’t want to be distracted by false identities.
Because ultimately, we’re all souls with skin on. And on Judgment Day, every human being will be in one of two groups — saved or lost, forgiven or condemned.
This is why I’m attracted to the 1963 “I Have A Dream” speech of Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, in part, “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.” How Christian this practical, moral perspective is!
Yet in my generation, I’ve heard even more profound wisdom from biblical Christian pastor E.V. Hill of Los Angeles, who, during the 1992 L.A. riots, was a guest on the Christian-format radio show I was producing at the time. (Back in 1957, Hill and MLK were two of seven pastors who formed the anti-segregation Southern Christian Leadership Conference.)
While portions of Los Angeles and Long Beach were burning — a criminal response to white police officers being acquitted of using excessive force against Rodney King, who was resisting arrest — Hill uttered these wise words on the air:
“I don’t understand the verdict, but this I know — I know who I am: First, I’m a Christian. Second, I’m an American. Third, I’m a man. Fourth, I’m a black man.”
E.V. Hill got it right.He knew his main identity must be in Christ, and he moved race to the back of the line, where it belongs. For in the New Testament, true Christians have a spiritual identity that’s literally out of this world:
For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:26-29)
This is why true Christians should think of themselves as “in Christ” and avoid competing identities. Likewise, when asking the introspective question, “Who am I?”, the correct Christian answer is “I’m a saint,” or “I’m a child of the King,” or “I’m a sinner saved by grace,” or “I’m a happy slave of Jesus Christ.”
This means my primary identity is:
not in my race, ethnicity, or nationality not in my sex not in my age not in my performance not in my looks not in my possessions not in my status and not dependent on people liking me
I can tell you, I’m not totally there yet. Because developing my identity in Christ requires me to daily “die to myself” and to replace the lies I’ve believed with the truth of the Bible, which tells me the truth about God, the truth about myself, and the truth about the devil. The pursuit of a Christian identity is the quest for true mental health. Real peace, real security, real significance, real knowledge, real love, and real life are its satisfying fruits.
As for a non-Christian in the United States of America, his or her main identity should be as an American. For if citizens of a particular nation do not identify with their own country first, it’s all to easy for them to become unreliable in matters of faith, duty, and love.
“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all … The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic … There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.” Theodore Roosevelt, 26th U.S. President (1901-1909), in 1915
“I want to say — I cannot say too often — any man who carries a hyphen about with him carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic whenever he gets ready. If I can catch any man with a hyphen in this great contest I will know that I have got an enemy of the Republic.” Woodrow Wilson, 28th U.S. President (1913-1921), in 1919
Thursday, January 2, 2020, 10:38 am | Randy Thomasson
December 29, 2019 shooting at the Sunday morning service of West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas (Fort Worth vicinity)
I was horrified by the church shooting in Texas just before New Year’s. Even though the hooded murderer inside the church building killed two others, he was stopped from killing even more people when he was shot dead by a trained member of the church’s security.
With the growing, devilish trend of church shootings in the USA, you can bet that more congregations will get the idea that they should train at least one male churchgoer to shoot and stop an invading murderer. And despite this hard subject, we all should be very glad when a good guy with a gun takes down the bad guy with his gun.
Because with the rise of atheism and immoral, unfair wrath against peaceful religions, no church can say, “It can’t happen to us.” And I hope no pastor will be paralyzed into a false sense of security by thinking, “God’s in control.” Truly, our main thought here needs to be loving our neighbor, by preventing harm to our neighbor. And for Christians, closer than neighbors are the brethren, who we should love with a whole heart.
In 2019, there were at least two shootings at a California houses of worship — in April, at a Jewish synagogue in San Diego County, and, in February, at a Protestant church in Sacramento County. Ready to explore a murder-prevention plan for your church congregation? Here’s a good-reputation training ministry that can help.
“But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.” Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, in John 10:12-13
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