What To Do About Planned Parenthood
Here is an email I sent to our Church:
Church Friends and Family,
Another Planned Parenthood video was released today. It is linked right here, and embedded below. If you have been following them, you know that the revelations to our collective conscience are more and more disturbing. So the great question is, "what can I do?" In addition to your personal prayers, acts of love for men and women affected by abortion, and donations to quality pro-life organizations like this one, I would like to let you know about several more opportunities.
Here are a few things in the near future that you can do to stand for the lives of the unborn. Feel free to share this info with friends.
- Join the peaceful/prayerful protest Saturday morning 8/22 at the Planned Parenthood building in Fresno. This is part of a national event where Christians and prolife advocates around the country (and world) will be gathering to stand for life. It is taking place on 8/22/15 from 9am-11am. Our local event is organized by our friends at Right To Life. You can get more info or RSVP at the Facebook page here.
- Join us for a community prayer meeting on 8/30 at Free Grace Church from 7pm-8pm. You can find more info on the Facebook event page.
- Get Equipped on how to think and speak the truth
- At Free Grace Church on October 4th, our own Josh Brahm will be offering a seminar on the most undervalued pro-life argument. Josh has devoted his life to helping pro-life people think clearly, and engage with prochoice people in wisdom and compassion. We will have the training following worship from 12pm-2pm and lunch will be included. RSVP by email or here on Facebook.
- Our local Right to life is hosting a training event: "Abortion from Debate to Dialogue" with 2 different dates available. 8/27 and 8/29. for more info or to RSVP Call (559) 229-2229 or Visit www.RightToLifeCA.org/JFA This event includes class time and also time on campus doing pro-life outreach.
Laboring with and for you,
Pastor Matt
Here is the most recent video. It is disturbing, as we would expect any faithful depiction of abortion to be:
Prayer Meeting for Abortion
Join us for a prayer meeting held at FGC this Sunday night at 7pm on July 26th. We are inviting folks from the community to come and pray with us. We will spend time in repentance and humbling ourselves before the Lord to see his mercy on this issue.
If you have seen either (or both) of the sting videos from Planned Parenthood that came out in the last few weeks you have to be disgusted. You should also know that people are having conversations about abortion that have never been had before. In many ways this information is not new, it has just been hidden behind a veil of willing ignorance. But now the filth has been exposed to the light and many people are finding a voice to talk about this. And even many pro-choice advocates are having conversations about this.
All of this adds up to a great opportunity for repentance and change in our country. We would love to seen an end to the evil of legalized abortion in America. But that will never happen without the intervention of God. Undercover videos, political operatives, social media, large donations, etc. all have their place as "extras" in this play. The starring role can only go to Christ.
In case you haven't seen the videos, you can watch them here:
What Kind of Faith Are You Talking About?
A majority of Americans claim to have some kind of religious belief. And the majority of those claim some version of the Christian faith. A 2007 pew poll says that 78% of Americans claim to be Christians. Of that group 51% claim to be Protestant, and 26% going to be evangelicals. Close to 26% profess to be Catholics. Of course statistics have their limits. And it is almost certain that the landscape has further changed in the last 7 years. This study tells us what people report about themselves.
But those percentages are significant. Found hiding in those numbers is a group of serious religious people. They are caught up in the fight against secularism. These people may find such numbers encouraging. Maybe things aren't so bad after all? On the other hand, people who are serious about Christianity may also find these numbers troubling. Why? Because there is a disconnect between the walk and the talk. Does anyone really believe that 78% of Americans are even trying to follow the teachings of Jesus? Perhaps that standard is too high. Do even half of these "believers" faithfully follow the teachings of their own sects?
This is not a new problem. When we read the Bible we encounter a similar situation. In the Gospel of John we read, “Now when [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.” (John 2:23-25, ESV)
In the original text of John chapter 2 something interesting is going on that we might miss in this translation. The word for “entrust” in v. 24 is the same word describing that the people “believed” in his name (Pisteuo- in bold above). We could translate it, “many people believed in his name…. But Jesus for his part did not believe in them.” Their claim to belief was unconvincing. And though we may be suspicious of religious claims, we do know what is going on deep in someone’s soul. But Jesus knew their hearts. He skeptical was about their faith.
In James 2, we read about a similar problem. Some of the believers of the early church professed their faith in Jesus, yet they treated the rich and the poor radically different. They treated the poor with contempt. This behavior was a kind of lie detector for their Christian profession. Their actions were inconsistent with their faith. He writes to them, “But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!” It is not enough to have a claim of faith if your life doesn’t match up. And the great example is the faith of the fallen angels. They are good theologians and understand God. Even more than that, they have an appropriate emotional response, fear. They tremble before God. Which seems to be more than some of the folks reading the letter from James.
Last week at FGC we looked at Luke 8:26-39. In this passage we see an example of this demonic faith. It may have been the very incident that James had in mind. A man that was possessed by many demons falls down at the feet of Jesus. The voices that come from him are the voices of these evil spirits. And they express acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus and fear of the coming judgment day. “When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” (Luke 8:28, ESV) You can listen to the sermon here.
This is an important concept for Americans. We seem content with a little bit of religion, and a little bit of Jesus, and a little bit of pop Christianity. But there is a kind of faith that isn’t worth much. The Bible talks about it in bitter terms. It doesn’t transform the life. It doesn't make you a christian, it makes you an actor. And it is little better than the faith of demons. Throughout the rest of Luke 8 we read about commendable responses to Jesus. Read the chapter for yourself. In fact, just before this passage (about the demon possessed man) he tells the parable of the sower. It is a story that vividly depicts the different kinds of responses to Jesus and his teaching. And only one really counts. It is the one the bears fruit. Unseen faith in the heart always produces visible fruit. Not perfection. Not sinlessness. But real fruit.
As for the other kind of faith, Jesus doesn’t believe in it. I wonder what he would say about America? I wonder what he would say about my faith, and yours?
Abortion and Lies
Sunday I preached on abortion for Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. We have done this since we planted the church. Each year we try to look from a different angle at the issue to provide Biblical truth and also cultural insight. This is always done with the perspective of the gospel in mind. The deep change that we need to recover from the wounds of abortion and be reconciled to God can come only through the message of His grace in Jesus Christ.
This year we looked at some of the great lies that abortion culture is built on.
Below is one of the stories I quoted in the message that you can listen to here. You can (and should) read more about the long list of abortion providers that gave up their work after seeing what it was really all about. This comes from the Human Life Review.
"At least one clinic worker, nurse Brenda Pratt Shafer, turned against abortion almost immediately after witnessing a partial-birth abortion. (This is also called a “D&X” abortion for “dilation and extraction.”) Shafer, who was “very pro-choice” at the time, accepted a temporary agency’s assignment to Dr. Martin Haskell’s abortion clinic in Dayton, Ohio, in 1993. On her third day at the clinic, she observed the D&X abortion of a Down Syndrome baby in the sixth month of gestation. She saw Haskell deliver most of the little boy’s body, keeping only his head inside the womb:
The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping, and his little feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the [surgical] scissors in the back of his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out . . .
The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck a high-powered suction tube into the opening, and sucked the baby’s brains out. Now the baby went completely limp. I was really completely unprepared for what I was seeing. I almost threw up as I watched Dr. Haskell doing these things. . . .
The woman wanted to see her baby, so they cleaned up the baby and put it in a blanket and handed it to her. She cried the whole time. She kept saying, “I am so sorry, please forgive me.” I was crying, too. I couldn’t take it."
After my message, one of the ladies at church came up to me and asked, with incredulity, "how could anyone who knows that this happens still support abortion?" And the answer is that most people don't know what really happens. I have done outreach on college campuses and discussed this. Most students don't understand what is going on. The evil and moral corruption of abortion can only survive when it is shrouded by deceit and darkness. Advocates of abortion cannot speak about the dignity and life of the child. The discussion is shrouded in medical and political euphemisms. And the sad thing is that these lies don't only take the lives of children, they harm women as well. Indeed a great many women go along with abortion because they are lied to. You can listen to the whole message here.
Photo used by permission Ged Carroll. Some rights reserved.
God and The Reasonable Person Standard
When I worked in healthcare I was told that if I ever made a mistake, especially one that might harm someone, that I would be judged by the “reasonable person standard.” What that means is that a person’s conduct would be evaluated against based on this concept: What would a reasonable person with similar training and experience do in your circumstances? If what you did was in line with what a thinking person with your certification might do, then even if some harm followed you would be cleared. Your decision wouldn’t be considered an act of negligence.
I was recently reading the book American Sketches by Walter Isaacson. In one of the essays he mentioned that Albert Einstein famously remarked to a friend, “When I am judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way.” We may speculate on the larger context and meaning of the statement. But it made me think about this idea: “If I were God, would I have done it this way?”
The implication here is really applying the form of the reasonable person standard to God. Take 100 other intelligent, wise, compassionate people and ask them how they would have made the world. If their answer is different than what we see, then we must conclude that God is somehow negligent. This is the way we often deal with suffering and evil in the world. It is easy for us to conclude that God got it wrong, because we would have done it different if we were in charge.
Lay people do this all the time to the “experts” and it is now more visible than ever. Social media makes it easy for us to publish our condemnation of coaches, referees, engineers, police officers, surgeons, generals, judges, pilots, etc. With little consequence we can broadcast our “informed opinions” about all these people and their decisions. Of course, few of us fit into the “reasonable person” standard when compared to these people. We don’t have their training. We don’t have their experience. We haven’t had the privilege of their mentors. We don’t know the rules and guidelines of their profession. And we aren’t liable to suffer the consequences of their decisions either. What we do have is a meme, or a 30 second sound bite with which to judge them. Somehow this makes us the standard. And it is laughable how often we are wrong. When the full story is revealed many of the most criticized decisions end up being the right ones.
We also do this to God. We can say with Einstein, “If I were God…” But is there really a more arrogant statement? What we should really say is: “If I knew absolutely everything, including the past and the future… If I could see into people’s motives and heart dispositions… If I was able to perfectly balance the interests of all things in the right proportion… then I would have done things different.” But that isn’t true. You aren’t God and neither am I. You can’t even master 1/100th of all there is to know in any one academic or scientific discipline, let alone all of them.
But God does know it all, and has gracious purposes. He has made this clear in sending Jesus to enter our world and suffer on our behalf. He has withheld nothing from us, no matter the cost. Though his gracious purposes include a world of brokenness and evil, we can trust that if we knew what God knew, we wouldn’t criticize. We would just stand in awe. And one day we will. But he hasn't done it the way we would have done it. But since most of us have trouble balancing our checkbooks and keeping a few resolutions for the New Year, it is more reasonable to trust that the one who framed the all the wonders of the world-great and small-is more qualified than we are. We should stop acting like we are the reasonable person standard for God.