Abortion: To Be or Not to Be
Abortion is such an important issue in the forthcoming Presidential election this column is being rerun. It will doubtlessly be a significant factor in the vote.
In a defense of abortion some resort to when life begins. In a lighter vein three persons were discussing the issue. One said it begins at conception, one at birth, and the third said life begins when the last child goes off to college and the dog dies.
“Webster’s Encyclopedia of Dictionaries” defined abort(ion) as meaning “to fail to come to fruition.” Consider some persons who would not have come to fruition if their mothers had followed through with their initial desire to abort them: Aristotle, Art Linkletter, Faith Hill, Priscilla Presley, President Gerald Ford, President Bill Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt, Nancy Reagan, Steve Jobs, Dave Thomas, Edgar Allen Poe, George Washington Carver, Nelson Mandela, Nat King Cole, John Lennon, John Hancock, Leo Tolstoy, Tim Tebow, Eric Dickerson, Dante Culpepper, Tim McGraw, and Jim Palmer.
What potential talent has been lost due to an abortion!
The Bible defines the impropriety of abortion. The Greek word “brephos” defines life in Scripture. A Greek dictionary defines it as “an unborn child, or a newborn child, a baby, or an infant.” Thus, the preborn is considered a person as is the new born.
The Bible character, doctor Luke, used the Greek word brephos to describe the unborn John the Baptist in his mother’s womb. The Greek word is defined as “a breathing nursing infant.”
Luke later used brephos to describe Jesus at His birth (Luke 2: 12 & 16). He used brephos for an unborn and the same word for an infant at birth.
Modern science gives insight. A preborn is a living nursing infant. It oxygenates (“breaths”) through the umbilical coming from the placenta.
There is some evidence that a baby in the uterus does do what is considered “breath” or properly makes respirations. However, the only thing going in and out is the amniotic fluid. In this way the oxygen goes in the infant. The central nervous system begins in the pre-birth stage also. This is a common factor with the young infant.
The person going through open heart surgery called cardiopulmonary bypass illustrates this. The lungs are artificially ventilated during the surgery to prevent them from collapsing. The patient gets oxygen through the blood in a manner like the unborn infant.
Jeremiah (20: 17) states a relevant issue: “…that my mother might have been my grave….” Had she not allowed him to fully develop before birth she would have been his grave.
We have inverted so many of our values. You can be fined $5,000 and get jail for one year if you destroy an eagle’s egg. How about the egg (ovary) of a human? This indicates our society values a bird as being worth more than a child.
Just 1% of women obtain an abortion because they became pregnant through rape, and less than 0.5% do so because of incest, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The other 98% are for convenience.
The Old Testament character Micah (6:7) asked a pertinent question: “Shall I give my first born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul.”
Oh, add Ludwig Van Beethoven and Arthur Rubinstein to the list of those whose mother’s considered an abortion.
God or Government?
Jesus interacted with a group of bigoted religious leaders who sought to impel Him on the horns of a dilemma. They asked, “ Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” It was a gotcha question, a ruse. The groups questioning Jesus were the Herodians and the Pharisees. The Herodians were pro-Roman, the Pharisees were anti-Roman. No matter how Jesus answered the question, He was sure to offend one or the other. To side with the Herodians was to commit heresy in the eyes of the Pharisees, for to pay tribute to Caesar was, in effect, to bow down before other gods; but to side with the Pharisees was to commit treason in the eyes of the Herodians, for to refuse to pay tribute to Caesar was an act of sedition.
Jesus asked, “Show Me the tax money.” So they brought Him a denarius. Jesus probed further, “Whose image is on it.’ They replied, “Caesars.” He said to them, “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” End of the conversation. They left. (Matthew 22:15-22).
A casual reader is likely to miss the primary point.
The tax money had the image of Caesar on it. By virtue of his image being on it, it was his.
Then Jesus made His point saying we are to render “to God things that are God’s.”
What thing bears God’s image? Only one, we human beings were created in the image of God. “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him…” (Genesis 1: 27). The point, give yourself to God. Pay Caesar his due and God his due…. yourself. Have you ever done that? Do you do it daily? Renew that commitment daily. Once we give ourselves wholeheartedly to God then we know how to establish priorities.
There are a lot of competing claims in your life. By prioritizing them more can be accomplished. Jesus and His will for you as priority number one enables all else to be aligned in proper order. Family, friends, church, social clubs, sports, and society in general are but a few of the entities competing for your time and attention. Most are not evil, but they keep us from the optimum good if not aligned as priorities behind the Lord.
Jesus in response to His detractors focused on government, Caesar, and the Spirit. Both in proper order are good. His loyalists must relate to both properly. Don’t depend on the government to do for you what God alone can do. We should look to God, not the government, to supply our needs. Government has assumed many roles intended by the Lord to be provided by the church as His agent. The government can never do as well what God intended His church to provide as can a functioning church. Trust God, not Caesar.
One Vote Counts
An election year is a period when all the Democrats and all the Republicans devote their time and energy to save the country from each other. It is often hard to know who to vote for in that many candidates have straddle sores. Their purpose is to stay calm, cool, and elected.
With all the faults of our system it is still the best in the world, offering many of the best qualified people to serve. There are many wonderful candidates deserving our encouragement and support. We should be thankful elections are by ballots not bullets and we count the returns, not the remains.
The two candidates for President have positions on each issue. Do you? If so, vote for the candidate whose positions and yours are most alike.
A person who is a one issue voter needs to consider they thereby are supporting all of the other issues espoused by that candidate. Therefore, a one issue voter really isn’t a one issue voter.
Why vote? Because your vote counts and can actually be the determining vote. Former President Eisenhower said, “The future of the Republic is in the hands of the voter….” In this statement he noted two great truths. First, our form of government is a Republic, not a Democracy. After all, in our pledge of allegiance it is to “the Republic for which it stands.” Second, the importance of the individual voter is brought into focus. It has often been one person that decided an election.
Adolf Hitler won the leadership of the Nazi Party in Germany in 1923 by one vote.
One vote gave the Presidency of the U.S. to Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876.
In 1776 English, not German, was made the official language of America by one vote.
One vote gave control of England to Oliver Cromwell in 1656.
France was changed from a monarch to a republic by one vote.
By one vote the Pope was declared infallible.
By one vote Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Texas were each admitted to the United States.
The trend in America has been for special interest groups to register their constituency and get them out to vote. Though a minority in society they become a high percentage of voters. Many of these are motivated to vote for people who promise to give them their desires, their entitlements. In most instances that translates as “money.” The government has no money, therefore they must take it from the people who do and give it to those who elected them. It is a modern day form of buying votes. It is simply that the money doesn’t come from the candidates as it once did but from the public. Meanwhile the majority of those from whom the money must come don’t vote. By failing to vote they mute their voice. Their position is reduced by a factor of one.
Edward Everett Hale put the importance of the individual in perspective in these words:
“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. What I can do I ought to do. What I ought to do by the grace of God I will do.” We ought to vote. Never underestimate the power of one.
The door of America’s future swings on the hinge of the American voter.
The Choice Is Ours
Are you praying about the forthcoming election? I am. I will leave the result of my prayer in God’s hands. I only know He said “ask.” I want to do my part with confidence He will do His part.
I heard a speaker recently say we should not be concerned about the election result, we will do it all over in four years. True, BUT! What if in those four years something happens and the opportunity to vote has been taken from us. What happens on election day will influence what happens in the next four years, and what happens in those four years will determine the nature of America thereafter.
The speaker to whom I referred defined himself as one who believes God is sovereign and determines destiny. I, too, believe God is sovereign, but in His sovereign will He chose to give human beings a free will.
The Old Testament leader Joshua challenged his people as follows: “… if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24: 15).
In light of that example God may very well be allowing us to choose who we will serve. There is a great disparity of choices.
As the framers of our Constitution exited their assembly Elizabeth Willing Powel asked Benjamin Franklin: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” To which Franklin responded: “A republic, if you can keep it.”
The question of our day is whether we choose to be governed as we have been by a republic form of government or a socialist oligarchy.
Rather than trying to define the latter I ask that you look at the examples of Russia, Venezuela, and Cuba. Do you really want that? The modern day national Democratic party strongly leans in that direction and if in power will likely seek to lead us there. There are many good patriotic Democrats who do not desire such, nevertheless their party does. The policies they advocate are covert Socialism.
Often we don’t know the value of what we have until we don’t have it. Let us abrogate that principle by valuing what we have as not being perfect, but the best there is.
There is a lot not to like about the candidates of the National Republican party. However, in running from a bear let’s not run into a lion, in this instance the National Democratic ticket.
A person voting for a pro-abortion candidate on that issue alone is voting for the rest of the party’s socialist agenda also. Do you really want that?
Choose Your God
Who is your God? The answer once would have been the Triune-God, that is, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, with the Son Jesus Christ being the representative most people related to more personally.
Today there is a new god in town. Having demanded the expulsion of God from government under the misuse of the declaration our Constitution demands separation for God and government to be separate. It doesn’t. That expression originated in a letter from Thomas Jefferson written to the Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut, where he expressed his strong belief in religious freedom and the separation of church and state, famously using the phrase “a wall of separation between Church and State” to describe this concept. The Baptists were concerned that following the pattern of European nations the Presbyterian Denomination was about to make the government sponsored official denomination of the state. Jefferson was writing to insure the Baptists there would never be a denomination made the official religion of the state. The modern usage of the expression is improper.
Currently with God having been removed from government and society in general there is a new god in town. People have turned to the government and celebrities as the new gods. Where previously people looked to the Lord God for guidance, provisions, and protection they now look to the government for those matters.
Dependence on government rather than reliance on God is the new norm. Our country is about to elect a president who will guide our government, that is, our god. May it be the more godly form.
Consider, would you like a government that tells you what car you can drive, what type stove you can cook on, that supports transgender males playing in girl’s sports, finances sex changes, withholds funds from students attending denominational schools, is a proponent of child mutilation, mandates inoculation of members of the armed forces with an unproved vaccine, and wants increased taxes to support their radical agenda? Really!
A representative of such a god, government that is, awaits.
There is an alternative who believes we deserve to be governed like our predecessors by a Constitutional Republic form of government, a government that encourages individual responsibility, traditional morality, and less government.
Where there is more government there is less personal freedom. The best government is the government that governs less.
Some people scoff at the thought this is the most important election of our time. If not, which is?
Joshua gathered his people at Shechem and challenged them: “Choose you this day who you will serve,” Our day of choice has come.