Life Matters - July 10, 2024
This life is temporary. We all know that. Every life is precious. We don’t all know that. Or so it seems in this dark, confusing world. So much murder. So much endangering of other people’s lives. Other people. So much carelessness about…other people. In my 60 plus years I have seen more than enough of life to become empirically convinced, thoroughly persuaded by the evidence, that respect for human life is intrinsically intertwined with belief that God is, that He created us in His own image, and that He desires to give us life and bliss beyond the grave. A grave brought upon us by one man’s sin. One man (Jesus) also died, but this One without sin, (Romans 5:17-19) so being able to take the sins of the whole world upon Himself. Brutally whipped and crucified he was then pierced with a sword to make sure he (his body) was dead. ‘’Forthwith there came out blood and water.’’ (John 19:34) Blood for forgiveness and water for purification of life as it signified the living water, flowing from Jesus into us, then to flow out of us as ‘’rivers of living water.’’ (John 7:37-38)
God is holy and His holiness cannot accept, cannot mix with sin, else holiness would become unholy. God can, however, by His holy decree, accept sacrifice for sin and stay holy. This He did for us in Christ, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. (John 1:29-36)
Heathen cultures have a notable lack of respect for life. In 2019, Sadie and I spent several weeks with missionary friends (who feel like a part of our family) and several weeks with a daughter and family (our son-in-law is a Bible translator) in two such countries where the original culture base was animism; (fetishes and ancestral worship). In the first-mentioned country my friend took me into the jungle one day, past a military airstrip, to a cliff overlooking a beautiful but uninhabited green valley surrounded by wooded hills and mountains. ‘’Here,’’ he said, ‘’is where the military used to throw criminals off the cliff into the valley far below and now I’ve heard they started doing it again, to terrorists, but I don’t really believe it.’’ His voice trailed off…then…’’Emanuel! Oh! No! There’s a man hanging from that tree by his foot!’’ I looked down and saw a scene that haunts me to this day. Not ten yards from where we stood, and visible below the cliff’s edge, were the top branches of a tree, (it must have grown out of a crevice in the cliff) and near the top of the side toward us, was a black-skinned foot caught in the fork of a tree branch with the paler sole of it turned upward. From where I stood I couldn’t see the corpse, as the cliff blocked its view, but the stench of death now assailed our nostrils, carried by the updraft from far below. There was nothing we could do so we turned away with a fresh awareness of how even human life is viewed (culturally, despite ‘’christianized’’ areas) as a ‘’thing’’, cheap, meaningless, disposable and therefore, when there are no friends or family in the immediate vicinity, dead bodies may be disposed of by way of horrific indignities.
Even here in the ‘’land of the free and the home of the brave’’ there was a time when godless men abusively discarded the bodies of natives and blacks. There is much bloodshed in America’s story. But bloodshed and cruelty is only one side of the story. The other side of the story is about a people who believed in the God of the New Testament, the Creator of black, brown, white, Asian, African, Caucasian, all peoples everywhere having descended from Adam and Eve. Believing we are created in the image of God, when self-respect failed, respect for God’s creation remained.
Blacks were enslaved. Blacks were also freed. Natives were abused. Natives also had missionaries among them. Friends who treated them with respect, with kindness, and were recipients of the same from them. America’s history has the horrendous spectacle of the Salem Witch Trials of 17th century Salem, Massachusetts. But America’s history also includes the result; banning the use of spectral ‘’evidence’’ from its judicial system.
America has also now seen the spectacle of a President’s attempt to turn Title IX on its head. A President who approves of, and attempts to federalize, support for the ‘’privates’’ butchery, and sex change affirming ‘’care’,’ even for underage children, in the name of inclusivity. Who attempts to force the mixing of sexes in sports and locker rooms for the sake of not offending the perverse among us, celebrates June as ‘’Pride’’ month, claims credit where there is none, and innocence when his policies have disastrous results, etc..
President Biden’s debate performance was pitiful, yes, but imagine what all he must have on his conscience to befuddle his responses. Let us pray for his salvation before he is too far gone to comprehend. Perhaps there can be another side to his story. As there is another side to the story of America. Still. May we live out appreciation and respect for God’s creation.
Life Matters!