Tuesday, January 22, 2013

40 Years Of Murdering Babies

Father and Sovereign over everything in heaven and earth, the One true and living God, and Creator of all things, without which nothing would be, I am sorry for being so passive about the murder of so many innocent lives through abortion. I cringe at the thought of what you must think of this nation, a nation so full of information, intentions, self-aggrandizement, and arrogance. We (and I must say "we," since I am a citizen of this country) have declared war against a myriad of innocent lives who have never seen the light of day, never smelled a rose, never spoken a word, and especially have never robbed a bank nor murdered another person. This is a war in darkness where we pretend we cannot see, and yet technology has made us see their beautiful hands and feet, their perfectly formed hearts and heads, and even their countenances. Reveal to us believers what we can do to stop this encroachment upon our unborn children, gifts of God that would make our quiver full, and yet we make it empty, ones that would make us laugh and bring energy into our homes, and yet we shun that precious possibility. Teach us, Lord, to pray for those who are engaged in this wicked crime; open their hearts to their sin and grant repentance in their hearts. Then perhaps we as a nation can learn more of your morals instead of ours, more of your thoughts, which are greater than our thoughts, more of your mind, which is greater than our minds, and more of your grace, of which we have none until you give it.

40 Years of Murdering Babies -- January 22, 2013 -- Legalized by our nation in 1973.

Monday, January 21, 2013

My Prayer For Today

Father in Heaven, your name is holy, and we know that your grace will be sufficient to us through your Son, Jesus Christ. Sometimes, however, we miss the mark and shun access to your grace as believers. We bicker and argue and become both angry and complacent concerning the things that are going wrong in our country. We have just seen another president swear his allegiance to the constitution. We know our constitution is just a human document and that your word is a divine one. We all love our constitution. I pray that we will love your word more. I pray for our newly sworn-in president that you will work in his life to give him the wisdom he needs to lead our country. He is only human, but you are divine. He is subject to all kinds of error, but you are perfect. Give each of us as blessed citizens of this great country grace to have the right attitude toward all of our national leaders, and please be our shield and buckler. Please forgive us of our sinfulness as your children and help us to receive your chastisement with honor, learning from your rod and staff. We love you as much as we can; help us to love you more, and help our unbelief. Amen.

Celebrating Life or Death?

By Tom Ross
Pastor of Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church, Chesapeake, Ohio

    On January 20th, our church celebrated the sanctity of human life.  We rejoiced as we read and studied the inspired Scriptures that prove God is the giver of all life, physical, spiritual, and eternal (Romans 6:23).  We were blessed to learn that human life begins at conception, the very moment when the 23 paternal and 23 maternal chromosomes come together to form an individual in the protective womb of a mother.  Our heart's were thrilled to know that children are a blessing and an heritage of the Lord (Psalm 127:3), to be nurtured, cherished, and trained in the ways of truth and godliness (Proverbs 22:6).  We celebrated the sacred gift of life that is created and sustained by our gracious God.  Acts 17:24-29 declares: "God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth...seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things...For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspringForasmuch then as we are the offspring of God..."
    
     Unfortunately, we also had to examine the origins of the culture of death that persists in our society.  On January 22, 1973 the United States Supreme Court defied the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and decreed by judicial fiat that a woman could choose to abort or terminate the life of the child in her womb.  In the 40 years since that infamous decision over 50 million babies have been aborted in the United States of America, according to the Centers of Disease Control.  To put it into a statistical perspective it means that as a society we average 1.25 million abortions per year or 3,424 deaths per day.  All of the American casualties in wars from the Revolution to the present day total 1.3 million.  Hitler's atrocities in the Holocaust resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews, a number that pales in comparison to the 50 million innocent children that have been sacrificed on the "pro-choice" altar of the abortionist's surgical table.

     The tragedy of the Connecticut shooting where 20 precious children lost their lives at the wicked hands of a madman still lingers in our minds.  I can't help but think that this horrific event and others like it are the result of the culture of death that has been promoted in our society.  Over the past 50 plus years our taxpayer funded government schools have been mandated to teach  our children that there is no God, no Creator, and no moral law they are accountable to obey.  I heard President Obama say that it is our responsibility as a culture to protect the most vulnerable in our society, namely our children.  When President Obama was an Illinois state senator he voted to continue the atrocity of partial birth abortion.  The most vulnerable children in all the world are those who are in the protected womb of their mother.  Statistically, 3,424 children were aborted on the very same day of the Newtown murders.  Yet there was no outrage by the media as the remains of aborted children were thrown away in cities across our land.  Our politicians did not call for an immediate ban of abortionist scalpels and other instruments of torture used to terminate the lives of children in the womb.  Progressives and Feminists have successfully changed the language that people use to describe a babe in the womb to that of an embryo, fetus, or tissue.  However, they cannot explain away the violence against children that has contributed to the culture of death.  Included in the list of things that God hates and considers to be an abomination are: "A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood" (Proverbs 6:17).  May God be pleased to turn our nation back to one that celebrates life instead of death.
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An Old Home Place Of Mine

This picture was graciously taken and sent to me by Bennie Brown. This is part of a house where I used to live. It stands on Hwy. 330, or Morgan-Cordova Road near Morgan, Kentucky. I lived here (I am not certain of the exact time) from age 6 to about the age of 8. Many things happened while I lived here. Some of my memories are these:

The house used to be much larger. The house extended in the back in an "L" shape toward the right of the picture toward a small underground cellar on the right.

There was a barn out to the left of the house at a distance. The part of the house showing in the picture has only two rooms. The room on the right front was occupied by my grandfather, Francis Blackburn, until his death in February of 1952. The outhouse was down a small hill in the back of the house.

Dog In Ice Box

The part of the house that extended to the right in an "L" shape was the kitchen. In that kitchen at one time we had an ice box. We never used ice much, but we stored items in this ice box. Once I put our little dog inside one of the bins in the ice box and closed the door. When the dog finally began to cry, I had forgotten that I had put him in there. We looked everywhere for that little dog until I finally remembered what I had done and went and got him out. I don't remember getting a spanking for that, but I certainly deserved one.

Manure In The Face

Once my cousin, a girl a little younger than myself, had come out from town to stay a few days with us . We country children were always playing tricks on the "city children." My brothers took her into the cow pasture in the back of the house, and they pretended to be eating cow manure. She knew they were only pretending, so she got down and pretended that she was eating it, also. When she did this, my brother (not telling which one) pushed her face down into the freshly made pile of manure. Boy, you talk about causing problems, that was one confusing bunch of people for a while.

My Precious 50-Cent Piece

I do not remember where I would ever get a 50-cent piece, but I did (probably from my father). I was lying on the floor in the warm weather and noticed a small knothole in the floor near the front door of this house. I played with that knothole for a few minutes with my 50-cent piece. It seemed that the hole was too small to swallow up my 50-cent piece, but I was very wrong. All at a sudden the coin disappeared and has not been recovered (to my knowledge) to this day.

Nearly Broken Nose

My father worked in Covington, Kentucky, at this time; and he stayed in town all week and came home on the weekends. Once when he came home, he went straight to the barn. I wanted to see him, so I was hurrying to the barn to see him. I tripped on the front porch of this house and fell face first down upon a large rock beside the front porch. I nearly broke my nose. I so remember my father's running to the house and picking me up while I cried for several minutes. We did not go to the doctor, because Mom and Dad could tell my nose was not broken. We did not go the doctor in those days unless death was near.

Falling From Bicycle Basket

My brother, Eddie, was going to Earl Wallace's house, our landlord, to do some work for him. He wanted me to go with him, so he put me in his bicycle basket and pumped the bicycle up the small grade toward the next-door house. When we got to the house, Eddie said, "How am I going to get you out of this basket?" Of course, I did not know how he would do that. Then, without any explanation or warning, he ran the bicycle into the fence and threw me from the basket. I fell onto some very soft, green grass, and everything was just fine. However, I really don't ever want to do that again.

My Body Cast

Doctors decided they wanted to do some very extensive surgery on my legs due to my having Polio when I was two years old, so that was scheduled while we lived in this house. As a result of the two surgeries, I had on a body cast that extended from my toes on my right leg all the way up under my arms. I could not sit up but had to lie down all the time. I remember my father's carrying me into church and laying me down on the front seat of the church. I spent nearly the whole summer in this cast, and I was often taken outside at home. I have a picture of my lying down on a blanket in the front yard of this place.


Chewing Tobacco

I remember once walking along the front porch and seeing my grandfather's plug tobacco lying in the open window. I knew that he and my father used this tobacco to chew, so I decided to steal a little taste of it. I picked up the small plug and took a small bite, as I had seen my elders do, and I began to chew this little bite of plug tobacco. At first it tasted sweet, and I enjoyed it; but about three second later, I received my first shock of nicotine flowing through my body. I almost immediately got dizzy and sick. I have never tried chewing tobacco since that time, and I was only about seven years old.

Many More Memories Could

I could continue to cite many more memories from my living in this place, including the eating of green apples in the apple orchard that was behind the house, the old man and woman (Maggie and George) who used to ride in a horse a buggy up and down the road, etc.

I hope you enjoy these memories.