Belinda's Buzz

Recently the state of New York removed most restrictions on abortions, including late term abortions.  You can read about the changes to the law here: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/23/health/new-york-abortion-measures-trnd/index.html.  This is a pro-abortion article, so it should be about as fair as I can get in providing a reference to the law.  New York, even with this change in its abortion laws is not the most liberal state when it comes to abortion. You can go here to look at a summary of abortion laws in the different states: https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/overview-abortion-laws.   As you can see, some states have absolutely no restrictions on abortion at any stage in the pregnancy.  The following link will take you to a site that gives a sanitized description of the “process” for abortion procedures from conception through late term abortions:  http://americanpregnancy.org/unplanned-pregnancy/abortion-procedures/.  Warning, this last site does have some descriptive elements that are not pleasant, but it is not overly graphic in its descriptions.  I selected the above sites because they are pro-abortion in order to avoid being accused of linking to overly sensationalized anti-abortion articles or literature.  By doing so it becomes clear abortion is the ending of a human life, and that late term abortion does so in a way that is painful to the child.  You can see that in an article even when the article is pro-abortion.

The above sets the stage for what caught my attention today.  Someone offered up a prayer request concerning the change in the law in New York.  Specifically, they wanted us to pray for those who were now going to consider late term abortions.  During the actual prayer time someone did pray for this specific request.  They prayed that those who were going to consider having abortions be brought to realize that abortion was a sin and the ending of a human life and that they would reconsider their decision.

I was struck by the nature of the prayer.  Not that I disagree with the tenets of the prayer, killing another person is a sin, I fully agree.  But when the request was first made my thought was that we need to pray that God would send others into their lives to offer support, guidance and hope.  I have to believe that almost all mothers contemplating late term abortion would be doing so under some form of duress. I doubt anyone does it flippantly, after all, they certainly have been experiencing the movement of their unborn child for some time.  After I read a few articles about late term abortion, it seemed that at the heart of the decision was a loss of hope for the child and a future, and those around the mother are in accord with this loss of hope.

As Christians, we should first be a source of love, support and hope to those who are clearly in a dark place in their lives.  I am certain that if we have been clear about our Christian convictions that no one will assume that we are OK with any form of abortion, let alone a late term one.  And I have to believe that most mothers are agonizing over the decision they are faced with and may need support to make a decision to see what God can actually do. Let this be our prayer for these struggling souls, that God is a God of hope and that there are other options.

The text for our morning service today was Psalms 49:17 For When he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall not descend after him. It is rather easy to remember that when you die you don’t take it with you.  All the wealth, prestige and influence are all left behind.  There isn’t a Christian alive who has attended Church for any time at all has heard messages about the foolishness of investing every effort in life towards those things that are confined to this earth, they are temporary and will fade away.  But a point was made today in the morning service message that caught my attention.

The context of this verse is the “profitability” of the wicked. I would say that I know very few (if any) people who are truly wicked, but I do know a lot of people who are Godless.  They don’t seem to suffer the ills of the world any more than I do or other Christians that I know.  It seems that the Godless can get away with investing their energies in this world without consequence, after all Matthew 5:45 reads “That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

But the new side of this truth – that the saved and the unsaved suffer equally life’s ills – was that as believers we have a Heaven that awaits us.  One that is free of the suffering that befalls us from time to time or is the theme for the truly oppressed.  But for the unbeliever the closest they will ever get to heaven is the joys and rewards that this world has to offer.

When I considered how those who seem to have everything the world has to offer suffer pains, difficulties, dissatisfaction, loss and feelings of emptiness just like those who do not have all the worldly gains, it was striking that their heaven would be this cheap imitation that is a response to the fleshly appetites but is still polluted by the sorrows of the world.  For those without God, this world is as good as it gets.  But for the believer, there is a much better destination to which we are headed.  Praise God for His mercy and Grace that has given us such a tremendous gift.

Or at least some did, well 50,000 did. Cyrus decreed that the children of Israel should return to their homeland and re-establish the temple. This was after 50 years in captivity, but only 50,000 returned to Israel, so a good number of Jews stayed in the Babylon and Persia. While it would be easy to fault those that stayed for their lack of faith our Sunday School class upon further reflection concluded several things about those that stayed behind in Babylon and Persia.

There was no command from God that they go, so they were not disobedient. Most would have been born or had spent the majority of their lives in Babylon and Persia. They would not have had any emotional connection to the promise land and they had full lives in Babylon and Persia. We were pretty sure that the Jews did not feel that this was so much captivity any more, but that it was their home. After all most probably had gone to middle and high school in the same town in which they currently lived ;).

And a number of years later after Ezra and Nehemiah return to rebuild the temple, Haman attempted to destroy Mordecai, God uses both Esther and Xerxes to deliver the Jews from Haman’s plot, showing that God still cared for His people the Jews. This deliverance occurred even though these Jews had stayed in Babylon/Persia.

We are always his children no matter where we are, no matter where we live. God’s grace reaches everywhere.