Reaping the Whirlwind

The Lord calls us and empowers us to walk in holiness - that means that through Christ, we have been given His new nature and have the capability to please Him and reflect His presence within. 1st Thessalonians 4 states:
3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;
4 that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,
5 not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;
6 that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.
7 For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.

God calls us to surrender our lives to Him and submit to His person and His principles.  But, it is our decision - He does not force His way into our lives.  We are given the beauty of free will - choice. And, with renewed emphasis on the Supreme Court's determination that the termination of life was illegal, people are claiming that they are "pro-choice" and have the bodily right to determine whether or not their child lives or dies.  That decision, I would say in most cases, was made long before the pregnancy occurred - the sexual revolution, as it's been pointed out, produced a permissiveness toward sexual activity outside of the teachings of Scripture.  Those who want to exercise a deadly choice over their unborn child have reaped what they sowed through earlier choices. 

+++++

The Bible is a guidebook, complete with the power to follow its principles, regarding how we relate to God and to one another, and provides a basis for decisions that we make. 1st Corinthians chapter 6 says:
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

The "draft opinion" attributed to Justice Samuel Alito of the U.S. Supreme Court has certainly set off a firestorm of reaction across our nation, which is grappling with perhaps become accustomed to a world without the precedent of the Roe v. Wade decision.

And, that's not only rhetorically, but physically, as well, as in physical demonstrations at the homes of Supreme Court.  Tony Perkins of Family Research Council stated:

Across the country, churches braced for the Left's Sunday service threats to come true. In Los Angeles and New York, parishioners were swarmed by anti-life crowds, who either interrupted mass or "swarmed" churchgoers outside. That was tame compared to what happened in Madison, Wisconsin, where a state family policy council, Wisconsin Family Action, was set on fire and then vandalized. "If abortions aren't safe," the arsonists spraypainted, "then you aren't either."

He referenced the comments by Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, who said, in a statement:

“While this attack was directly provoked by the leaked draft opinion from the US Supreme Court in the Dobbs case earlier this week, this has far broader implication. Apparently, the tolerance that the left demands is truly a one-way street. Violence has become their answer to everything. This is what happens when leadership is missing or when leadership implies that violence is ok. In 2020, Governor Tony Evers basically looked the other way when violence erupted in Kenosha and Madison. That kind of non-response fosters what happened to us this morning, leaving Wisconsin citizens who disagree with his policies extremely vulnerable to similar violence...

For 49 years, supporters of the right to life would come to Washington, DC and show the nation what a peaceful protest actually looked like.  The March for Life has sent a strong message of compassion for the unborn and their mothers and has been a galvanizing event.  Contrast that with what we have seen in certain cities in light of the leaked court document.  But, it's not surprising.  In the past few days, we have been given a stark reminder that the violence in the womb has unfortunately been translated to violence in our society at large. 

We should never allow our minds to be closed to the horror of abortion. But, we can pray for hearts and minds to be changed to remove the callousness toward life in the womb.

Those who oppose the sanctity of life and the right of an unborn child to live claim that women have a right to choose, that their bodily autonomy allows them to make this choice to take the life of their child. Unfortunately, the sexual revolution's teaching on bodily autonomy has resulted in a reckless approach to sexual relationships, leading to unwanted pregnancies. There are consequences to free will, resulting in the termination of rights, when another person, a living unborn human being, is involved. 

A recent Meeting House guest retweeted this very simple statement that was part of a thread including a link to a story in Evie Magazine. It said, "Don’t have sex with anyone you don’t want to have a baby with."  I don't know what the spiritual background of the article is, but she highlighted principles that I believe are compatible with Scripture and the consequences of the sexual revolution.

Writer Gwen Farrell puts it this way:

With unexpected or unplanned pregnancy as the biological result of sex, our victim-led society grasps for an out, thereby creating the “demand” for abortion. 

The majority of pro-abortion advocates lead their narratives with their victimhood – they’re subject to oppression at the hands of a Judeo-Christian norm, of white people, of men, of their fetus. In reality, they already made their choice, and it was before they ever decided to terminate their pregnancy.

We as humans tend to look for any way out that we possibly can when it comes to confronting our own errors. We avoid uncomfortable topics like our own mortality or perceived infallibility, and we avoid personal responsibility. Not only have we been doing this for so long that implying a woman’s own part in her pregnancy is deemed unacceptable to point out, but we’re also so laughably, intentionally cut off when it comes to the mechanics of reproduction.

We, of course, recognize the scientific fact that two people come together to produce a child.  By and large, there are choices by men and women that result in this occurring - and that life that comes into being, regardless of the circumstances, is a precious creation of God.  The sexual revolution and philosophy of bodily autonomy - you know, "my body, my choice," have created an atmosphere in which children are not being conceived according to God's perfect, Biblical plan.

For the Christian, the Bible is clear about to whom we belong, and 1st Corinthians 6 tells us to glorify God with our bodies.  Our choices should be guided by our fidelity to the Scriptures.  The Lord has a wonderful plan regarding sexuality, and our culture has perverted it in so many ways - abortion is one of the fruits of that corruption.  Because people don't want to take responsibility for their choices. Fortunately, through compassionate Christians in pro-life centers across America and the use of ultrasound technology to show precious life in the womb, women are realizing the beauty of the life God has ordained.