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If you have not heard you should. There is a man on trial in Pennsylvania named Kermit Gosnell. His charged crime is the murder of newly born infants and a woman. Yet, people who worked under him would say that the number of infants killed by his hand or under his direction could be in the hundreds.
And many people are trying to ignore this. Because Gosnell was an abortion provider who made millions of dollars by his actions.
Such actions by Gosnell are so exceedingly wicked we, for the best, cannot grasp them!
I wanted to bring this atrocity to attention and provide some helpful links.
The Gospel Coalition gives you a run down on the situation and what you need to know about it.
One of the most telling thing of our age is that this issue is being ignored by our media. What should be front line news is pasted over. Trevin Wax explains why.
Finally, Russell Moore shows how the gospel should inform our vision of Kermit Gosnell and ourselves.
For a full documentary on the atrocity by Gosnell here is a video:
One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.
-Martin Luther King Jr., “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, 16 April 1963
These ideas are considered poisonous in today’s public sphere. The elites of our country will tell you that it is dangerous to mix religious beliefs and laws.
But today we get to remember a man who stood against that idea. He stood against real oppression and injustice because he knew it was against the law inscribed by God. And if the State was out of step with this law he did not believe he was to keep his religous views private. Instead we was willing to openly defy the states laws and consider them unjust. The State was below God and the State was only just when it coherred to God’s laws. Very dangerous ideas in our day and age.
And so today we remember the ideas and accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr. He was imperfect like the rest of us but grace used him to accomplish great things. I am for thinking biblically about what he thought and did and rejoicing in what he got right. Lets rejoice in the equality that has been won by his work and remember The Lord who gave him his vision of equality.
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!who acquit the guilty for a bribe,
and deprive the innocent of his right! (Isaiah 5:20,23)
This coming Sunday we take time to mourn and speak out against the evil that happens in our cities: abortion. The depriving of the innocent of their rights which is under legal protection. Evil is called good. Darkness is presented as light and the bitter for sweet.
As we live in this as God’s people it is good to see what Isaiah saw. Even with these woes being leveled against the people Israel Isaiah,
saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said:
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:1-3)
Even though the world we see is full of wickedness the reign of our Holy, Sovereign God is the reality. Even though Isaiah was surrounded by a people who rejected justice and loved sin it did not infringe upon God’s reign.
We, ourselves, are the most thankful that God is patient with sinners. For by His patience, we were lead to repentance and faith in Christ. We seek to over turn the evil. We mourn that the evil is allowed to continue. But we also know to be patient about the promises,
But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. (2 Peter 3:8-10)
Evil will be done away with. God will fulfill His promises. Until that time we proclaim Christ and seek to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with our God. Which in this case it is to proclaim the evils of abortion and to seek the over turning of the laws which allow it.
Come, Jesus, come. Amen.
My job has nothing to do with relieving the pain of orphans in Haiti or anywhere else. My job consists of standing at a register and scanning bar-codes. There is nothing world changing about it. There is no social injustices being over turned by what I do. And on top of that the primary reason I am doing it is to make money.
Is this wrong? From what I gather from some growing up in this social action driven generation this may seem to be a waste of life. How could I be so individualistic by doing a job that has no influence on the betterment of society? How could I waste my life working to earn money?
It is very true that this world is not all that there is. “This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has grown very short. From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Corinthians 7:29-31). The end of this world is a present reality that should have shaping influence of the decision we make. Everything from the desire to marry to buying groceries is to be done in the frame work of this world passing away. “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). All we could possibly gather to ourselves and/or lose in this world has no comparisons to what we will have in the coming age. It is very true, “Only one life will soon be past; only what is done for Christ will last.”
So does that mean I am living in a temporal and selfish mindset when I spend 8 hours a day scanning bar-codes to make money?
If that is all the bible had to say then we would have to say yes. However, God commands some things that seem very temporal and selfish.”and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one” (1 Thessalonians 4:11-12). “For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living” (2 Thessalonians 3:11-12). What!? They are not to sell all they have and move to present day Uzbekistan to spread the gospel? Has Paul shifted to a temporal mindset? Doesn’t he know no social injustices will be over turned by these people just “earning their own living”?
Here is the balance that Scripture gives us to these things. We are not to waste this life in the lest bit. Yet, God does not count the lowliest job as a waste. On one side we are protected from the America dream which says that the goal of life is to accumulate wealth. And on the other there is the glory of jobs where we do not selfishly burden others to care for us.
The bible does not call a life that is working a boring, unexciting job a wasted life. Instead, it says it is a life where we are not having to have others provide for us. And then with the extra funds I do make I can give it away. For with the funds I earn from the unexciting job of scanning bar-codes I can give to a couple who is going over seas to translate the bible for those who do not have it. In both assignments, the translator and the bar-code scanner, God is equally glorified.
Renewing Thoughts 