Episode 21: Sanctity of Life

Thank you friends for taking a few minutes this evening to listen to engaging truth. You are hearing this interview in particular because someone's gift to Elm made it possible. As you listen to the last part of this message, will you prayerfully consider making it possible for others to hear by giving to E LM? And so make your gift to Elm P O box 5 68, Cypress Texas 77, 410. Your gift is tax deductible and you'll receive a receipt. Thank you. The following program is sponsored by evangelical life ministries.

Welcome to engaging truth, the manifestation of God's word and the lives of people around us. Join us each we week, as we explore the impact of his message of spiritual renewal from the lesson of forgiveness forwards in the crucible of divorce, to the message of salvation learned by an executioner from a condemned killer to the gift of freedom found in the rescue of victims of human trafficking. This is God's truth in action.

Welcome to another addition of engaging truth today on the program, we have the Reverend Dr. Lawrence White senior pastor of our savior Lutheran church in Houston. And Dr. White is a nationally renowned speaker on the subject of right to life and life. Sunday, welcome to the program Dr. White,

Thank you brother. Great to be with you.

So as we enter a, you know, 20, 21 people have wrapped their minds around the coronavirus, and that seems to be the only thing that's on the news. And we heard that, uh, coronavirus deaths in the United States recently top 2 million. So it is Syria, but it is not the same number as that of, um, uh, abortions and abortions are, uh, recently read to be the number one cause of death in the world. So, uh, why do you think we've gotten to this point, Dr. White, where we're focusing on one thing and not another?

One of the fundamental tenants of our society has been transformed. Thomas Jefferson, certainly no Christian about it. He is in the declaration of independence, affirms that every human being has been endowed by our creator with unalienable rights among which are life. And if that right, the life is not a component in the fundamental values of any society, then the law of the jungle comes to prevail. And that's what's happened in America. Those who are the smallest, the weakest, the most vulnerable members of our society have come to be expendable. In the days of the Holocaust, Nazi, Germany, they referred to Jews and gypsies the inferior races as, uh, intervention sub layman's, UN onboarding, Nan life, unworthy of being lived and in a less explicit, more subtle way. That's exactly what we've done. We've deprived, unborn children of their humanity, and that makes everyone in and puts everyone in jeopardy.

If we are not the strong, the wealthy, the powerful, the majority, then our right to life at this point in time is in jeopardy. Now, you know, folks get upset with me and, and I'm, I'm used to that. I've been a pastor for almost 50 years and, uh, you know, Luther once said, if vanilla ain't screeching, you ain't preaching. So I guess I've been preaching cuz there's a lot of screeching. how people get upset when, uh, I compare the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews to the American Holocaust of abortion. But the point of comparison is simply this in both on a political ideology, a certain portion of the human race have been deprived of the right to life for the Nazis. It was on the basis of race for us here in America. It's on the basis of size and location. We have to given the primary values of our culture.

We have to facilitate fornication. We have to make it equally available for both men and women. And given the, uh, the inconvenient reality that women get pregnant and men, don't only way we can equalize their opportunity to practice recreational sex is for them to have the opportunity under the law to eliminate an unintended or UND desired pregnancy. And, uh, that's the bottom line. All of these things are interconnected and the mechanism is death. That's the way sin as always work. The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in our Lord. Jesus

Christ. You know, enough first Corinthians told me I could just go on. Yeah, I'm glad, I'm glad you did.

So if you jump right in there and ask a question, if you'd like,

Well in first Corinthians 10 23, the apostle Paul said, all things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. And um, you know, I think you and I are agreed that, um, adoption would be a healthy response to a pregnancy that was unwanted. Um, are you familiar with the, uh, Dublin declaration of, uh, delivery room doctors and staff saying that there is now with the advancements in medicine, there is now no reason for, uh, a child to be aborted. Uh, you save the life of the mother medically mm-hmm

. I think that's, you know, we, as this has been going on Val for nearly 50 years in the early days, we assumed, we hoped that as medical technology, advanced abortion would become unacceptable and obsolete as we learn more and more about the humanity of the unborn child in the womb. And that has indeed happened. At least the advancement of medical knowledge component of that has happened. We've learned about the, the sensitivity and, and the identity of that unborn child. We've learned when the heart starts beating and the body starts moving and the, the fetus can respond to stimulus from the outside in a remarkably sophisticated way. Uh, but as that technology has advanced, so has our imoral insensitivity, we know about what the unborn child is aware of and what it isn't and how human it actually is, but it no longer matters. And, uh, our ability to district guard that humanity as our morality becomes more and more debased is progressing more rapidly than, uh, medical advancements in technology.

And once again, that's exactly what happened in the totalitarian states of Nazi and communism in 20th century, uh, as they conducted grotesque medical experiments on the, uh, the inferior races of Jews and gypsies, those doctors and the attendance and the guards and the, and the SS units in the camps all became so hardened to what they were doing, that it, uh, it just was automatic. The devil is a gradualist. He is patient and he works one little bit is a time of at a time, as we said earlier, and that's what's happening in America, we have become. So, uh, enrapture by this lifestyle that says, I all that matters. And my pleasure may not be obstructed or limited or restricted in any way, no matter what the cost may be all the way up to, and including the death of anyone who is, or who, at least in my view constitutes an obstacle to the fulfillment of that pleasure has become the irrefutable number one priority of life. And if sexuality is going to be reduced to the level of mere recreation beginning, uh, for 40% of the young people in America in middle school, then that means that, uh, the unborn are remain, uh, are going to remain victims because they're obstacles to that obsession with personal satisfaction that has become the primary American norm.

So we have, um, temptations and we also have been desensitized as you're alluding to, with, uh, you know, our, our desires for, uh, sexual freedom that, uh, are contrary to God's will for us is, uh, uh, his children and also for family. Uh, so how should the church approach, uh, the changes in our country? You know, now we've got a, uh, a different, uh, uh, government coming into power and,

Uh, I four 60.

Yeah. And, and so, so we've, we've come from one administration that has been strongly pro-life and now there's another administration coming to power that is, uh, has said that they're not. So in favor of pro-life. So what should the witness of the, the church collect and church members individually B?

Well, John influence noted that the problem with democracy is that you get the kind of government you deserve. our leaders reflect the, uh, a morality, the absence of morality that prevails in many of our people to the church must, first of all, recognize that this whole construct of the absolute separation of church and state is a falsehood. It is a pretense. And for us as pastors within the church, we look out at our congregation and we must recognize that, uh, abortion is only the tip of the iceberg. Abortion is the consequence of the degradation of human sexuality. You used a to go the word, sexual freedom, and that's the way the devil works. He loves that word, freedom. We are liberating this and liberating that, but it's not freedom at all. It's to my own desires and to my own lusts and what the consequence and the result of that is the trivialization of my humanity.

As we go back in a biblical record, all the way to Genesis and the creation of human beings as male and female, it is a wonderfully, uh, blessed process, carefully designed by God to give us the, a love and a commitment of one man, and one woman in, uh, love to one another for life that is as close as we can come. We human beings fashioned in his images, his likeness to the love of God. And what all of this does is deprives us of that and lowers our sexuality and the physical sensations that are a part of that sexuality to nothing more than the selfish pursuit of visual pleasure, which makes me no different than any other animal and deprives me of that precious relationship, that unique opportunity that God designed for us in holy marriage. And I, as a pastor, must recognize that abortion is simply the, the pinnacle, the, the tip of that iceberg.

That is the, the, uh, centralization of the lives of my people. We have rampant divorce. We have the, the destruction of marriage. The birth rate is going down among our people all the time, because let's face it. Children are expensive. They're the biggest responsibility we're ever going to get. They're also the greatest plastic with that responsibility and what the devil has done in his carefully devised strategy is deprived us of all of that and de based us to the point where in order to experience that selfish, isolating pleasure, I'm ready to take a human life who would've thought such a thing could ever happen. And as a pastor, my, as a shepherd of the clock, my responsibility is to help my people discern what's going on here on the basis of the word. This is a poison that permeates every be part of our lives and deprives us of the quality of, uh, the humanity, which God gave us originally fashioned in his image. This isn't about, uh, Joe Biden or Donald Trump. They're just the reflections of political move within the culture. And we as Lutherans, heirs of the reformation with Luther's, uh, incisive doctrine of the two kingdoms, recognizing God and work in both the church and government in different ways, we are the ones who got this right biblically. He had, we ought to be the ones who most effectively are able to respond to it. But sadly, that's not often the case. Recently,

You had a, uh, message that's posted on your website, uh, sermon message about the sin of silence. Could you go into that little bit? What is that sin

Of silence? Well, our responsibility as Christian is to proclaim in word, indeed, the truth of God, we are called to be the stinging salt and the shining light. And the gleaning city said, hi, upon a hill, we are to show God's way and God's word. And if we are ready to do that, then we are going to be in trouble with the culture. We're going to be the faithful remnant that is unpopular and persecuted because the devil always has the majority in this world. The devil always has the numbers and the noise. That's the way it must be. And we as Christians cannot, if we are to be faithful to the word of God and practice, the love of Christ cannot simply stand by and let this happen. Not only to protect ourselves, but to witness to the society in which we live the, the cost of sin, the damage sin does when God forbids something.

It's not because he wants to be repressive and limit our enjoyment when God forbids something, it's because he loves us and that which he forbids is destructive. And if we that destruction to take place that we failed to witness to the care and the compassion and the love of Christ, you know, we were faced this past Sunday, uh, with the, uh, impending inauguration of the new president with the first, uh, opportunity to mention, uh, president elect Biden in the, in the prayers for the church right now, how do we go about doing that with an avidly pro abortion president a again, as a student of church history, I look back to our Lutheran experience in the 12 years of the, uh, reign of Adol Hitler in Nazi, Germany, too many Lutheran churches went through that whole period, just adding the head of government to their prayers, praying for the Sunday.

After Sunday, after Sunday, while Jews were slaughtered by the millions, yes, we should pray for our president, but we should pray that God in his mercy would turn him from the path of death to the path of life. We must make the witness. We cannot stand silent. Kane once asked after the, uh, murder of able am I my brother's keeper? Well, the answer is yes. If we're going to be like Christ, we have the obligation to speak the truth, to denounce the lie, to defend life in the face of sinful fascination, with death and self. That is our responsibility.

Well, you see, of course, all of this, uh, is about life. John says in him was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. God created us for life. When we forfeited that life by our disobedience, God sent his only begotten son to live the perfect life that none of us could ever live and then to die as our substitute on the cross so that we might be restored to life for God. This has been about life from the very beginning and the price that he was willing to pay to bring us back to life is beyond human imagination. That's the essence of the gospel. God is pro life, no matter what the cost. And so we,

Me very good. How could our listeners, uh, check in and hear some of your, uh,

Messages? Well, you can go to our church website, uh, our savior Lutheran church, uh, here in Houston and, uh, either to the website or to Facebook and all of that stuff. And all one of the, uh, one of the more pleasant, uh, side effects of COVID is that now all of that, even though we are back to onsite services, all of that is broadcast every Sunday we will be having, uh, pro-life Sunday this week, once again, and, uh, you'll will be hearing a lot of those kind of fakes if you tune in and you are welcome to do so.

All right, well thank you for being with us and giving some, uh, encouragement to our listeners. Join us again real soon for another addition of engaging truth. Goodbye.

Thank

You for listening to this broadcast of engaging truth. Be sure to join us each week at this time, to help support our ministry contact evangelical life ministries, post office Fox 5 68, Cypress, Texas 77, 410, or visit our website@elmhouston.org, or find us on Facebook at evangelical life ministries. Thank you.

Thank you friends for taking a few minutes this evening to listen to engaging truth. You are hearing this interview in particular because someone's gift to Elm made it possible. As you listen to the last part of this message, would you prayerfully consider making it possible for others to hear by giving to E LM? And so make your gift to E LM PO box 5 68, Sipress Texas 77, 410. Your gift is tax deductible, and you'll receive a receipt. Thank you.

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