I always appreciate your articles, Sarah. Rose and I send our love and prayers as you recover. It is good to see you writing and doing the podcast again.
I think you are quite correct about this last election. Republicans running against the abysmal record of the Democrat Party does not project a program of policy reform, especially when…
I always appreciate your articles, Sarah. Rose and I send our love and prayers as you recover. It is good to see you writing and doing the podcast again.
I think you are quite correct about this last election. Republicans running against the abysmal record of the Democrat Party does not project a program of policy reform, especially when a number of Republicans support many of Biden’s pathogenic policies. Voters need a choice, not the motto, “Democrats are terrible, so vote for me.” The motto may be accurate, but offering inferior candidates to take advantage of voter dissatisfaction is cynical as it is irrational. Moreover, as the election has proved in many places, such as Pennsylvania, that strategy simply does not work. Republicans had an opportunity to offer a clear choice this election, but they failed. If inflation, rising energy costs, a hot war in Europe, government-supported LGBT+ propaganda in our school, the federally approved male suppression of female athletes in college sports, the celebration of abortion as healthcare, Chinese threats to Taiwan’s independence, and looming economic recession are not enough to disabuse the electorate of policies advanced by Biden and his Party, I don’t know what it will take. But Republicans standing in favor of some of these failures muddies the political waters, blurs the choice, and confuses the electorate. Why should anyone be surprised?
But there is another icy prospect to consider. Eventually, God abandons nations to their lusts. He abandons them to perform the evil desires of their hearts and blinds their minds. Paul tells us this in the first chapter of Romans. And in Jeremiah 7:31, God tell his prophet not to pray for Judah anymore. God explains that the people’s sin has gone too far, that they live in unredeemable idolatrous rebellion. God specifies that Judah has built altars to idols in the high places of Tophet “…to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire….” This is a particularly chilling judgment of abandonment in which God convicts Judah without hope of appeal or mitigation through prayer. As Judah has failed to extend mercy to the children it has sacrificed, God now refuses to extend mercy to Judah. It would appear that the fiery sacrifice of children was the final straw. God even refused to hear prayers for mercy even should the Weeping Prophet desire to offer them in Judah’s behalf.
Of course, contrary to what some have claimed, America is not Israel. Nonetheless, God cannot be less angered over the cries of dying children because their inhuman sacrifice occurs in Western medical facilities rather than on altars in the Mideast. Whether children burn in the womb in America soaked in abortive chemicals or burn on altars offered as part of idolatrous worship, the distinction seems a less than crucial. The children are still sacrificed. And whether the presiding priest wears ceremonial robes or a surgical gown, that sacrifice is made to the demonic in order to establish a covenant with death that gives the entire culture the aroma of putrefaction—what Pope John-Paul II referred to as “a culture of death” in his encyclical, “EVANGELIUM VITAE” (March 25, 1995). Despite the Supreme Court’s rejection of Roe v Wade, the practice of sacrificing children has not been repudiated. In fact, I would be happily shocked should this happen, but I don’t believe this is what the future holds. Efforts to legalize abortion nationally are now underway on the federal level, and a number of states permit abortion up to the day of birth. We may be seeing a movement of events in which the nation decides, as a whole, to affirm and embrace child sacrifice as healthcare—or, at least, as a matter of political expediency. We must oppose these efforts as a matter of obedience to God, but should those efforts fail, we must not be disheartened. Should we see such a national embrace of abortion, I would judge this as God’s hand of judgment upon the nation, a judgment that abandons the land and its people to an evil in the sight of God—an evil that the majority of people have affirmed as good.
But even if the worst happens, Christians should not feel abandoned. For even Jeremiah--the prophet God told not to pray for Judah—was authorized to offer a promise of hope for the restoration to the Land of God’s people after judgment. We have a similar promise. It is not the promise of existing real estate; instead, it is the promise of the final fall of the Earthly City and the eternal reign of Christ in the Heavenly City. No matter how the battle seems to be going at the moment, the Heavenly City has already won. Moreover, that City is where our true citizenship lies, and God admonishes us to remember where our earthly sojourn is leading. Until we come to the end of that journey and receive God’s promised redemption, we are admonished to be faithful to the gospel, to offer Christ grace to those seeking mercy, to encourage and instruct fellow believers toward maturity, to oppose the “culture of death” by our actions, words, and prayers, and to look with obedience and expectancy for our Lords coming. For even if He abandons in judgment the Earthly City to its lust, God has still promised never to abandon His Church. Even the Gates of Hell fear this promise, and we may rest in God’s faithfulness.
I always appreciate your articles, Sarah. Rose and I send our love and prayers as you recover. It is good to see you writing and doing the podcast again.
I think you are quite correct about this last election. Republicans running against the abysmal record of the Democrat Party does not project a program of policy reform, especially when a number of Republicans support many of Biden’s pathogenic policies. Voters need a choice, not the motto, “Democrats are terrible, so vote for me.” The motto may be accurate, but offering inferior candidates to take advantage of voter dissatisfaction is cynical as it is irrational. Moreover, as the election has proved in many places, such as Pennsylvania, that strategy simply does not work. Republicans had an opportunity to offer a clear choice this election, but they failed. If inflation, rising energy costs, a hot war in Europe, government-supported LGBT+ propaganda in our school, the federally approved male suppression of female athletes in college sports, the celebration of abortion as healthcare, Chinese threats to Taiwan’s independence, and looming economic recession are not enough to disabuse the electorate of policies advanced by Biden and his Party, I don’t know what it will take. But Republicans standing in favor of some of these failures muddies the political waters, blurs the choice, and confuses the electorate. Why should anyone be surprised?
But there is another icy prospect to consider. Eventually, God abandons nations to their lusts. He abandons them to perform the evil desires of their hearts and blinds their minds. Paul tells us this in the first chapter of Romans. And in Jeremiah 7:31, God tell his prophet not to pray for Judah anymore. God explains that the people’s sin has gone too far, that they live in unredeemable idolatrous rebellion. God specifies that Judah has built altars to idols in the high places of Tophet “…to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire….” This is a particularly chilling judgment of abandonment in which God convicts Judah without hope of appeal or mitigation through prayer. As Judah has failed to extend mercy to the children it has sacrificed, God now refuses to extend mercy to Judah. It would appear that the fiery sacrifice of children was the final straw. God even refused to hear prayers for mercy even should the Weeping Prophet desire to offer them in Judah’s behalf.
Of course, contrary to what some have claimed, America is not Israel. Nonetheless, God cannot be less angered over the cries of dying children because their inhuman sacrifice occurs in Western medical facilities rather than on altars in the Mideast. Whether children burn in the womb in America soaked in abortive chemicals or burn on altars offered as part of idolatrous worship, the distinction seems a less than crucial. The children are still sacrificed. And whether the presiding priest wears ceremonial robes or a surgical gown, that sacrifice is made to the demonic in order to establish a covenant with death that gives the entire culture the aroma of putrefaction—what Pope John-Paul II referred to as “a culture of death” in his encyclical, “EVANGELIUM VITAE” (March 25, 1995). Despite the Supreme Court’s rejection of Roe v Wade, the practice of sacrificing children has not been repudiated. In fact, I would be happily shocked should this happen, but I don’t believe this is what the future holds. Efforts to legalize abortion nationally are now underway on the federal level, and a number of states permit abortion up to the day of birth. We may be seeing a movement of events in which the nation decides, as a whole, to affirm and embrace child sacrifice as healthcare—or, at least, as a matter of political expediency. We must oppose these efforts as a matter of obedience to God, but should those efforts fail, we must not be disheartened. Should we see such a national embrace of abortion, I would judge this as God’s hand of judgment upon the nation, a judgment that abandons the land and its people to an evil in the sight of God—an evil that the majority of people have affirmed as good.
But even if the worst happens, Christians should not feel abandoned. For even Jeremiah--the prophet God told not to pray for Judah—was authorized to offer a promise of hope for the restoration to the Land of God’s people after judgment. We have a similar promise. It is not the promise of existing real estate; instead, it is the promise of the final fall of the Earthly City and the eternal reign of Christ in the Heavenly City. No matter how the battle seems to be going at the moment, the Heavenly City has already won. Moreover, that City is where our true citizenship lies, and God admonishes us to remember where our earthly sojourn is leading. Until we come to the end of that journey and receive God’s promised redemption, we are admonished to be faithful to the gospel, to offer Christ grace to those seeking mercy, to encourage and instruct fellow believers toward maturity, to oppose the “culture of death” by our actions, words, and prayers, and to look with obedience and expectancy for our Lords coming. For even if He abandons in judgment the Earthly City to its lust, God has still promised never to abandon His Church. Even the Gates of Hell fear this promise, and we may rest in God’s faithfulness.