Keep Swimming Upstream

Swimming Upstream
Being Pro-Life in a Culture of Death part 3

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:13-14

Alfred Edersheim (1825-89) was born in Vienna, Austria to Hebrew parents and he was reared in the Jewish faith. He entered the University of Vienna when he was sixteen, but, as a result of his father’s ill health, young Alfred was presently forced to leave that institution. He wrote The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, first published in 1883.

Edersheim’s work is a gold mine of information relative to the religious and cultural conditions that prevailed during the time of our Lord’s earthly sojourn. The author’s fascinating description of Roman society as such existed at the dawn of the Christian age. It was so starkly “modern.” He wrote:

“It has been rightly said, that the idea of conscience, as we understand it, was unknown to heathenism. Absolute right did not exist. Might was right. The social relations exhibited, if possible, even deeper corruption. The sanctity of marriage had ceased. Female dissipation and the general dissoluteness led at last to an almost entire cessation of marriage. Abortion, and the exposure and murder of newly-born children, were common and tolerated; unnatural vices, which even the greatest philosophers practiced, if not advocated, attained proportions which defy description”

Sounds like he writing of America as we know it.

And the lie continues, even as we move into the political season.  The lie is simply this: that the political parties have to choose between social issues and economic issues. This year, the media and the party machines are telling us ad nauseam that the only issue that matters is the economy.

So any candidate who wants to win the White House should just shut up about things like marriage, the sanctity of life, religious liberty, and those other annoying issues that distract us from focusing on jobs and the economy.

But sin is costly, far more than we will ever know, though we do see some of the bills.  Consider what Rick Santorum had the courage to link the two in a recent Iowa town hall meeting.

“Yes, [the election is] about growth and the economy, [but] it’s also about what is at the core of our country . . . faith and family. You can’t have a strong economy, you can’t have limited government if the family is breaking down and we don’t live good, moral, and decent lives.” 

Sin is ALWAYS costly.  Remember what someone has said:

Sin will always… take you further than You Intended to Go

Sin will always… keep you longer than You Intended to Stay

Sin will always… Cost you More than You Intended to Pay

So swim upstream… shine His Light in the darkness.  John Stott wrote years ago:

“The world is evidently a dark place, with little or no light of its own, since an external source of light is needed it illumine it. True, it is "always talking about its enlightenment," but much of its boasted light is in reality darkness. The world also manifests a constant tendency to deteriorate. The notion is not that the world is tasteless and that Christians can make it less insipid ("The thought of making the world palatable to God is quite impossible"), but that it is putrefying. It cannot stop itself from going bad. Only salt introduced from outside can do this. The church, on the other hand, is set in the world with a double role, as salt to arrest -- or at least to hinder -- the process of social decay, and as light to dispel the darkness. When we look at the two metaphors more closely, we see that they are deliberately phrased in order to be parallel to each other. In each case Jesus first makes as affirmation ("You are the salt of the earth," "You are the light of the world"). Then he adds a rider, the condition on which the affirmation depends (the salt must retain it saltiness, the light must be allowed to shine). Salt is good for nothing if its saltiness is lost; light is good for nothing if it is concealed.”

So during the Clinton years, 56 percent of Americans described themselves as pro-choice, while only 33 percent of us self-identified as pro-life. But in just a decade and a half, the numbers have completely shifted.  According to the most recent Gallup polling, pro-lifers edge out those in favor of legal abortion by 47 to 45 percent. Half of all Americans agree that abortion is morally wrong.

Keep swimming…