Pastor's Pen 05/18/2022

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Published: 22 May 2022 22 May 2022

Last Updated: 22 May 2022 22 May 2022

Pastor's Pen 05/04/2022

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Published: 22 May 2022 22 May 2022

Last Updated: 22 May 2022 22 May 2022

Abortion and the Law

 

Abortion and the Law

The leaked Supreme Court Draft is an interesting read and gives some historical perspective on our country and the present state of our culture. 30 of the almost 100 pages (as an appendix) deal with specific historical testimony which shows that abortion is a new legal concept without precedent. It was only recently declared an intrinsic human right.
The draft is dated Feb. 10th, showing this has been in the works for a while. The leak is a significant news story in itself, but since this is an internal document, it is subject to revision and nothing has been decided by the Supreme Court as of yet.

The draft by Justice Alito admits that abortion is a contentious issue. Declaring it constitutional was a radical move at the time, both legally and socially. But now abortion is part of the fabric of American life for many. The knee-jerk reactions to this possible future Supreme Court action, overturning Roe v. Wade, show this. Many are profane, angry, and unthoughtful—almost pure rage. It seems to be this way because when you tell someone their most cherished principle and way of organizing society is not a right after all, but potentially criminal, it is their deeply-held religion that is being attacked. Abortion is the worship of man’s ideology, selfishness, and hate, which admits nothing higher.
Critics are calling this move radical, hateful, and dangerous. But the U.S. made it all the way to 1973 without this “right.” Most of human history has done well without treating life in the womb as a potential threat and enemy.

The argument is very careful and quite legal—and not so much about a moral stance on abortion directly. It simply says that the Constitution and the legacy of common law does not dictate that the act of taking unborn life is a constitutional right. Rather, the draft cites much evidence that it was a crime for most of the U.S.’s history. Even 17th century English jurists such as Sir Matthew Hale are cited as proof of the historic common law approach.

The previous decisions supporting abortion speak of “fetal life” or “potential life” (5), which we can all agree is not nothing. Whether one agrees this unborn baby is fully human and deserving of government protection and rights, or not, the issue cannot be avoided. As a country we have not become less contentious on this issue of unborn life because we were made to be fruitful; God gives life. It is not a choice, or else many with hardened hearts and wills would not have children or the possibility of a child—but they do, necessitating abortion, in their mind. We do not plan children as laying out a five-course meal. Despite the rhetoric of “pro-choice,” we have little to no power in the actual procreation life, only the ability to destroy it. The problem is actually man’s problem with our biology and the children created and given by the Maker—which cannot be solved by laws or government action. It is a God-problem, who creates lives—one the Supreme Court is ill-equipped to address.

The social change since Roe is noted. We have not become less divided as a nation and this issue of abortion is the line in the sand. It has become a rallying cry and voting principle, even though no elected officials have direct control over this issue—voting in almost all elections has no effect on the Supreme Court makeup.

Abortion and preserving the life of the unborn are more fundamental than sexual actions and other minority-type cases because all humans are alive. Life is something personal and universally to be valued, even as those lost in sin curse the day of their children’s birth and execute their God-given neighbor.

The draft says that Roe short-circuited the political process, ending debate by federal fiat—as an “exercise of raw power” (3). The draft is framed in terms of the relation of states to the federal powers, rather than abortion itself. It does not take a stance on abortion, as a moral question, but aims to return the power to each state, that is, the will of the people.

The tone is clear: “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences” (6). Modern, advanced medical technology allowed professionals to target the baby without harming the mother’s life. This was a new thing in human history. In the natural order, the two lives of mother and unborn child cannot be divided. They should not be pitted against one another, but are intertwined. To care for one is to care for both. Modern abortion, both surgically and recently in medicine, allows the baby to be unnaturally separated from the mother.
But as imaging technology has gotten better, the reality of life in the womb has become clearer in recent decades. Our eyes tell us a baby only a few months along is not a blob of tissue. Ultrasounds, sonograms, fetal surgery, and other types of technology allow for recognizing the wondrous nature of God’s creation—to peer into God’s workshop of the womb. This has clarified the issue and galvanized many, and has made it distasteful for most, even those who don’t see all life as made in the image of God.

The pro-murders don’t want to actually think about what happens in abortion—a vague idea (of freedom, security, or success) is placed in priority over an actual life. But our eyes do not lie, the images of life in the womb show a person—not an undeveloped mass of fetal tissue, but a person God created just like us.

The issue of almost 50 years of Roe’s reign is tackled by a long-term view: “Not only was there no support for such a constitutional right until shortly before Roe, but abortion has long been a crime in every single State” (15). The criticism leveled against Roe is that it was more legislation than legal opinion. The original trimester scheme and date of fetal viability has been criticized by those for and against Roe. All are subjective and viability has been lowered to at least 22-24 weeks with more advanced fetal medicine.
A conservative legal stance is evident throughout. Social attitudes have changed drastically. But is the idea of law as something above opinion polls and what people demand more fundamental? Should the courts and judicial branch move with the times and people? Or is there an eternal justice showing right and wrong, best exemplified by God’s law. Though not directly stated, that seems to be the underlying issue: does morality change and is the law above citizens?

Roe’s “right to privacy” is absurd when viewed neutrally, but of course no one can be completely neutral on the topic of life and babies—it is too personal. It is not the laws that are outdated, but how we define a person. The 1992 Casey decision which modified and codified Roe is quoted: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” (30). Does man completely define his own life—his aims and what is proper and noble for him? No, but saying so makes another person (or even granting the idea of a potential person) a matter of individual privacy, since a baby changes one’s life. But then everything must be private—the government should not say “no” to any action. That is the direction we have been heading.

What is freedom and human dignity? That is at the heart of the issue. Is it the freedom from guilt, slavery to sin, and eternal death—or to decide not to have a child given to you? If everyone decides their own universe, in the name of liberty, we have chaos, which is what abortion is—mother and father turning against their own progeny. Laws do not give hope. Overturning Roe would not be a Christian victory. God’s Word has not changed for those who listen to it. This quote by a non-Christian historian (William McNeill in Rise of the West), shows the shift in cultural attitudes which leads people to fight against new life.
Without religious revival on a grand scale, I should think it likely that moral lassitude and a spirit of indifference, a sense of futility, and perhaps, a supine fatalism would increasingly gain hold of men’s minds; and, having nothing much worthwhile to live for or strive for, they might cease to propagate their kind in sufficient number to prevent a decrease in the population of the earth. Something like this frame of mind did come to possess the Greeks and Romans, [in] the curious demographic decay of those nations … (Quoted in: J. W. Montgomery, Where is History Going, 97).

The issue goes much deeper than laws and temporary court decisions—which are of a negative civil authority and do not convert the heart. The pro-abortionists are really angry at God who created them to be fruitful. Separated from God, and in rebellion against Him, for the unbeliever there is nothing positive to ascribe to living, and therefore new life. The sinner’s will is pitted against God’s creative action fundamentally in abortion.

In truth, to be human is not to be a god in deciding who lives and who dies. To be free is to trust in God’s good and gracious will, depending on His care and providence in faith. Women are honored and blessed to be mothers, because life is good and from God Himself to be forgiven in the Gospel. Fathers are to be Christ-like in caring for their families and leading them under God the Father. But we only see this heavenly viewpoint of man in the cross of Christ—redemption for the human race. Real Christians want more baptisms, not less. But many Christians have been influenced by Margret Sanger and her gospel of death and non-life—as really living. “Mrs. Sanger intended birth control not simply to reduce the suffering of the poor and the number of the unfit [eugenics], but also to increase the quantity and quality of sexual relationships” (Marshall and Donovan, Blessed are the Barren, 69).

The issue abortion brings up (even for those who have not been pregnant or had martial relations) is fundamental. Do we decide the very existence of others—does our personal idea of life trump life in the womb (granting whatever one wishes to call it)? The more positive view (which Christianity teaches) is that life is indeed tragic and hard for a time, due to sin’s curse, but (unborn) life is not opposed to (adult) life—in Christ’s redemption it is blessed for eternity.

Justice Alito mentions explicitly in his draft newborn safe-haven laws and adoption. While those do somewhat satisfy the demands of the pro-murders, everyone knows that a child in the arms cannot be so easily rejected by his mother. The murder of newborns would require the most evil and heartless mothers.

Murder would never be so popular if it were only allowed after the birth—the connection God makes between mother and child cannot be so easily broken. Only the most hateful parents could murder their own child—calling the life that came through them evil. But the disintegration of marriage in the minds of many and the assumption that avoiding extra-marital sexual immorality is most impractical has broken the bonds tying humanity together. Modern imaging of life in the womb, however, allows the relationship of mother and child—which cannot be separated—to be forged easier and earlier, even for those who do not see all life as a gift of God. But it cannot piece the family back together.

The disparate ways of defining “human existence” is at the root of abortion. Do we define it by our wants, or is there a common definition which remains unchanged above our ideas, thoughts, and sinful desires? “Attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy and to define one’s ‘concept of existence’ prove too much. … Those criteria … could license fundamental rights to illicit drug use, prostitution, and the like” (32). A right to privacy for the existence of one’s own progeny is strange indeed, but as uplifting and defining “human existence” it describes an all-encompassing religious/philosophical principle, rather than a legal code. The self as god defines existence as not having children (unless one “chooses”), while doing the very predictable actions that will bring them. Of course, that is an ideological argument, not a legal one. “The fundamental moral question it poses is ageless” (33). It is really about nature—God’s creation of new life, not about ideas, for the Christian.

The draft makes the much more limited case that abortion is simply not a constitutional matter: “supporters of Roe and Casey must show that this Court has the authority to weigh those arguments and decide how abortion may be regulated in the States. They have failed to make that showing, and we thus return the power to weigh those arguments to the people and their elected representatives” (34-35). It is saying that the Supreme Court, a very small number of justices, should not completely decide this matter. The following is a rather provocative quote, but not a moral stance, per se: “Roe was on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided … wielding nothing but ‘raw judicial power,’ … the court usurped the power to address a question of profound moral and social important that the Constitution unequivocally leaves for the people” (40). The Christian should say that the sinful people should not decide it—God has already—but it at least it allows some states to get it right and prevent more bloodshed. The draft goes on to describe how this issue has overclouded almost every other matter in the U.S. But the state has an interest in life (even potential life), or else it can do little else.

The legal case is straightforward enough, but to those who see abortion as salvation, and think liberty and the good life flow from murder, it will not be convincing, I am sure: “Roe’s failure even to note the overwhelming consensus of state laws in effect in 1868 is striking, and what it said about common law was simply wrong.” Roe was and is radical and has not held up well in the face of logic, facts, and the reality of human life.

Despite the rhetoric of those incensed at the idea that abortion will not be a constitutional right, the case is made that this is not of a conservative cause, but a matter for the people. One USA today headline reads: “Rights to contraception, gay marriage and interracial marriage could be endangered under a draft Supreme Court ruling.” But the draft states explicitly: “And to ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that out decision concerns that constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion” (62). The reasoning, however, could be applied to other issues, but having the federal government or really just a majority of Supreme Court justices decide a moral, and ultimately spiritual matter, is not best.

For the Christian, God’s Word settles the matter. The draft is encouraging, though the reaction against this type of decision will be angry and violent. No matter, the Lord’s will is right, even when man opposes it. Life is ultimately His to grant and take away—as are laws, leaders, and nations.

 

Bible Study on this topic

Life and Death: Christ and Children

The Texas Abortion Law: “The Destruction of Democracy”

 

 

 

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Published: 17 May 2022 17 May 2022

Last Updated: 12 June 2022 12 June 2022

Power for Forgiveness

A Message from Pastor Hale

Many of those who make up the younger generations today know of Christianity, or think they do at least. There is a pre-conception of Jesus and the Bible, but they often do not know Him or His purpose. Raised with superficial or non-existent doctrinal substance (likely in Christian-named institutions), they do not really understand its absolute claims. This leads to worldly assumptions taking root which mischaracterize the whole nature of the revealed truth of Christ, the true God who took on our humanity to save us.

After decades of lousy doctrinal teaching and undue emphasis on emotion, numbers, and worldly success, the result is a barely recognizable caricature of the Christian truth – one that is completely at odds with the Holy Scriptures. The idea of Jesus and His death only brings guilt. Even being in a church building is a traumatic experience for those who once were taught that Christianity is the way to God. Many are already atheistic (literally meaning “against God”) or agnostic at best – assuming we can’t really know God or His will, so they make human assumptions about Christianity. 

But the replacements for religion are in place and deeply ingrained. Forms of cultural Marxism, tinged with “holy” political activism, put the focus on the here and now – trying to make the cursed earth into a man-made heavenly utopia, thinking government will fix all our problems. This worldly thinking rules out taking Christianity’s claims seriously, because it assumes there is only the material world – thanks to evolution on Freud’s assumption that guilt itself is bad – denying the spiritual and divine side of mankind.

The fruits of this are everywhere. I was struck by this quote on an internet forum regarding critical race theory being encouraged and taught in schools (even some of our Concordia colleges): “human interactions are much more nuanced than just power differentials and even power differentials are much more diverse and complex than just race.” This shows the error of applying a simplistic intellectual theory to all human ties – it denies the very possibility of love and reconciliation.

If earthly justice (essentially punishment and the re-arranging of the social order) is all there is (which is the theoretical assumption), then there is no place for true love and forgiveness. But this is due to not taking Scripture seriously in the first place.

Many so-called Christians are actually pagans when it comes to their most cherished assumptions about themselves and this world (even if they attend church regularly). They have learned from friends, entertainment, and social media radical enlightenment-tinged theory – rather than God’s truth. One example is the idea of love that has demolished respect for the institution of marriage and the family order. Scripture says we have no love without knowing God’s love in Christ: “We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, ‘I love God,’’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 Jn. 4). We are sinners through and through, unable to love and be holy, even if we can resist the grossest outward manifestations to some extent. 

The very idea of sinfulness and man’s corruption has been lost to a generation for self-esteemers and self-lovers – the “self” has replaced God. So the pagan idea of falling in and out of love, as if it were an invisible and unpreventable disease, like Covid, that comes and does whatever it wants to, without our consent, is worshipped. Love in Christianity, though, is a decisive, consistent, fatherly action, commitment and decision, that often means physical suffering and the denial of one’s own will.

So the high morality of Christianity is used against Christians, because they know nothing of the forgiveness offered in Christ. It is used to dismiss the very idea of there being truth. The absolution of the Lord offered in His resurrection from the dead is denied implicitly. Everything is simply power – getting what one wants, pleasing the flesh, and pure worldly success.

These pagan intellectual ideas have become truly religious in nature. They have caused non-Christians to evangelize loudly about the planet and climate – rather than accepting what we have been given (though cursed) in gratitude to our Maker.

People crusade for worldly changes –using laws and government force while families are increasingly disintegrating and children are increasingly at odds with the body God created for them due to wrong intellectual theories. Legal and political force is all there is to the pagan. 

Christians are told by Christ to submit to the governing authorities, but not worship them as above the God who instituted them. I seem to hear more talk of the U.S. constitution and Bill of Rights, even among Christians, than divine words of Scripture, as if they were more inspired and inerrant, which is not true. They, like our nation, are products of sinful men that have been edited and re-written, unlike God’s Word which is not taken very seriously. The Bible is assumed to be old and therefore fallible and contradictory, like everything else, without taking its words and claims seriously. It is hard to evangelize someone who already thinks they know the errors of Christianity, and are prejudiced against it. They might even consider themselves Christian in their own minds, though not thinking in doctrinal terms. 

There is, of course, a lot of injustice in the world. In fact, evil is quite real – it is much worse than the unbeliever thinks. All children of Adam are sinners and guilty of trespassing God’s holy law. But guilt is not just a tool to manipulate others and achieve earthly change. It is in-built due to God’s law being written on our hearts. This divine guilt magnified by the law is forgiven by Christ. We do not re-make the world in purity with our voting or civil ordinances, rather Christ will remake it and our bodies in righteousness by His own power at the Last Day instantly. Power does not bring hope, peace, and love. Though we have much in the way of material things, the most essential necessities for living under God and with other sinners have been largely forgotten. Man is a spiritual-physical being and the body is not to be worshipped or modified to fit out desires - it is God’s own creation.

Even if we forget the Lord, Christ does not forget us. We may lose the Word – its status and respect in the world does fade at times – but Christ does not leave us. Our Lord who died and rose over all sin does not need to be brought to us by force, He has promised to be with the smallest of groups in grace: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Matt. 18:20). His Word has the power to forgive. This divine power is greater than any human power. It generates, by the Holy Spirit, love in us to bear with one another, under our Lord and Head, Jesus Christ. His power is not oppressive or evil. God uses His power in love for our good. Amen.

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Published: 30 April 2022 30 April 2022

Last Updated: 30 April 2022 30 April 2022

Pastor's Pen 04/20/2022

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Published: 30 April 2022 30 April 2022

Last Updated: 30 April 2022 30 April 2022

Pastor's Pen 04/06/2022

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Published: 30 April 2022 30 April 2022

Last Updated: 30 April 2022 30 April 2022

Why the World does not Believe in Evolution

A Message from Pastor Hale

That may seem like a strange title, since evolution seems to be the foundational idea for the unbeliever. The heresy of attributing mankind and our world to randomness, in other words, anything but a personal God we are accountable to, is paramount. But it is really just an excuse, a justification, a convenient mess of scientific mumbo-jumbo to explain away immorality, harshness, arrogance, and decadence. It explains nothing and certainly does not drive its adherents to further the supposed aims of evolution. 

“The survival of the strongest” and “the will to reproduce” are used to explain away the harshness of man, his lust and sexual immorality, violence, and this entire world mired in sin and Adam’s curse, but it is not really followed or uplifted. This theory simply accepts the cursed state of things as good or at least necessary. But this last two years of pandemic reactions shows very clearly that death is not good, nor does evolution give tangible hope. The most atheistic and ungodly, the people in love with the idea of evolution, have been the most tyrannical in trying to prevent death by heavy-handed laws, betraying their beloved dogma.

Preventing deaths of a small minority is not what evolution suggests. Instead, it urges we should let the weak succumb to their inevitable fate, so that the species, as a whole, will survive and become stronger. As a narrative it is useful to the unbeliever in dismissing religion and the consequences of our actions, but when it comes to one’s own family and body – death is an evil to be avoided at all costs. Evolution glorifies death itself, dismissing the single entity, so that it promotes the general good – adaptation and improvement. The unfit must make way for the fit, we are told, in the acceptance of death.

But Covid reactions have been quite the opposite. Some countries, even China still, have had zero tolerance for sickness and its spread – as if we could control and defeat what sin has brought into the world. But governments do not have power over death. It has been allowed in abortion and euthanasia, making death a blessing in some circumstances. But this new unchosen, unpredictable type of death – God’s plague of punishment – was not welcomed. 

Notice how the narrative has changed: “we must do everything, even cease living, to possibly save a life out of love.” But love is not strength or worldly might, nor does Christian love demand and work through universal mandates enforced. There is no place for love in evolution, in randomness, or praising the concept of death. Moral arguments have no weight when it comes to strength and surviving a bit longer. Human love and government law cannot overcome death. Death, which civilization has accepted so blithely in evolutionary assumptions, suddenly became the thing most feared and to be avoided. What a turn-around! 

So what is said to be helpful and good – a fruitless, pointless death for most – has become a moral enemy, despite the fact that we know all will die and death cannot be prevented. In fact, we have almost seen the opposition of evolution: mandating with penalty the smallest behaviors that have no real likelihood of guaranteeing or diminishing survival. The fittest have been responsible for death, by our very living. The healthy have been said to be the problem – not the ones most unfit to survive a virus fighting for its own survival. Of course, humans do not have priority over animals, and even viruses, in evolutionary thinking. 

But the elderly have also been hurt in these recent drastic measures, because we are not just physical, material robots. Death is not our only problem. We should care for the weak, but the aged know, especially the Christian, that death is coming and cannot be avoided. Living out one’s last days alone views the person as a machine – as if a beating heart and functioning lungs is enough. But without human contact – enacted with government force – there is no tangible love shown. The Word of God heard in person, real people, and human interaction give a richness to living that evolution cannot give. I heard no expert boasting about how evolution would sort this mess out just fine, without our help or medical interventions.

A virtual love and internet visitation is not the same. That has been the greatest tragedy foisted upon society by the young and godless. Those who depend on evolution for meaning and justifying an immoral life thought to themselves: we cannot accept death. Even though death and the evolutionary principle that those who are weak are justifiable losers have been glorified. Love has no place in the great competition of survival. The death that was formerly seen as wholesome and beneficial became the enemy – to be avoided at all costs. The arrogance displayed in thinking that death could be overcome was massive. 

We could not simply live with death as a society, despite the fact that every individual must do exactly that – face death himself in hope or despair. But physical death is not the problem, we know. Eternal punishment and death cannot be staved off by not leaving our house. The problem is not physical, but spiritual. Humanity and its bonds is not the problem, nor governments the solution to death. 

The world’s harshness and the universal verdict of death upon sinners has been accepted – that is just the cycle of life, we have been told. For other people that has been fine, in general, but not recently for the unbeliever in pandemic times. But we are always in danger. Life in evolutionary bliss is a happy-go-lucky experiment with no ultimate meaning or purpose. 

Why do lives matter to the pagan? They certainly do not in abortion, and because babies are weak, they don’t fight back against their murdering mothers and fathers. That is evolution-friendly. But overwhelmed by the prospect of personal death, by a virulent virus, evolution is anything but comforting. One cannot believe in evolution, because it offers not one shred of hope. A species’ survival is not a comforting funeral sermon theme for your friend or loved one. After all, reproduction, the supposed “aim” of humanity has been so frustrated and limited – it has become a modern evil to be avoided, which is very much against the stated “purpose” of evolution: to survive and propagate. Yet this is not hope in itself either.

When death threatens all, the excuse of evolution is dropped. In death, we are all weak – there are no strong. The individual needs real, personal hope, not vague mantras about generic humanity or the species. We all must face death, but in Christ who died for sinners, we do not face it alone. We cannot outlaw death or all that could bring it upon our heads. But when sin is forgiven by the Father, the divine consequences of death are taken away and heaven is opened. Death itself is no happy accident, it is just punishment. It was never good or intended by God. Don’t accept it, but overcome it in faith in Christ who already died for you. 

True love is not avoiding people or playing the medical percentages, but is found in God the Father who gives us the Spirit in the Word, to live for God, in whom we cannot die. We overcome death in God’s grace, the removal of guilt, which is freeing, not restrictive, like laws. The pandemic lockdowns tried to short-circuit death – the prime mover of evolution – but that was futile. We always live in the midst of death as sinners. But in God’s love, we do not have to fear or change everything because of a new disease. We have a peace greater than seeing so much death and destruction and evil. Even the weakest life has value in our Lord’s submitting to death to save humanity. We care for all life, especially the smallest and weakest, because we do not accept death – we have overcome it in Jesus’ life.

Death is not something to be worshipped as holy. It was never good. Evolution glorifies and accepts what Christ died to give us victory over – God’s verdict of condemnation. Evolution is exposed as a brutal doctrine, with no hope or purpose for the individual. 

Yes, babies are given as a gift, and all will die, but God loves each one and calls all in Baptism to live with Christ forever. Death is neither the savior in humanity’s improvement, nor the greatest enemy to sacrifice all in avoiding – evolutionary explanations and zero-death Covid polices both miss the mark. Hell has been defeated and God is appeased in the sacrifice of Christ, so live above death, not in fear of it. Your righteousness is safe with Christ in heaven.

The animals around us lived (and died) unaffected by the all-consuming pandemic news cycle and induced panic. But humans have tried to circumvent what is unavoidable – because death is seen as very bad – only if it can happen to me and my family in a certain way! 

Love is not unyielding submission to civil authorities, supposed medical gods, or quick-canceling popular opinion. It is rather personal and relational – not a matter of ordinances, laws, and universal polices. Love has real purpose and must have solid meaning – and God is love, not politicians or possibly delaying another’s death. 

Every life matters, even the weakest and most fragile. We give them more care, not less. The strong have the duty and obligation to care for the weak, because death is not what we were made for. How we treat babies should not be based on the thought that death is good for them. Yes, we know they will die, but Christ has a better place than this valley of sorrow prepared for them. We baptize and raise them in hope – not just so most of our genetic code will last another generation. Hope in Jesus is greater than fear.

Physical death is not an idea, or our ultimate fate, but a physical door we must all enter through. In Christ, who died, we do not face death forever in hell, since it has been defeated and made temporary in the resurrection to come. Satan does not win. We are reassured in the Word of forgiveness that the death we all experience is not the profoundest meaning on earth. Evolution is Satan’s lie that death is not a real problem. Rather, we are called to love Christ who is greater than death, weakness, and dying, because we have a heavenly righteousness in our Lord.

It is our meaning and place in relation to God – beyond death – that matters most. Accepting death is not a hopeful or loving enterprise, as the world has been so painfully taught. So turn from sin and loving death, to the God who loved us enough to die in our place: Jesus Christ. 

Impending death reveals our God. Being faced with the fact that we must die has caused some to completely overreact and be anti-evolutionary – to do the very opposite of what they claim to profess, accept, and bless: death as progress. But morals and values and every individual matters. Accepting death and pure materialism is not a good religion. Simply stating that death is a fact of life does not work on the personal level, nor for all humanity, despite those who speak so glowingly about evolution in the grand scheme. The Gospel is the universal truth of hope, offering God’s pure righteousness to sinners caught in a web of sin and death they have perpetuated. 

Evolution is a harsh, hopeless doctrine. It cannot be believed, because it offers nothing personal to believe – it says nothing to the solitary individual caught up in the great machine of death and momentary reproduction and then more death – and finally, only death for all things. It only offers death in the end, nothing else. Death is not good news. Only God’s resurrection over death gives us strength to face physical death daily. 

Christ offered His death in our cursed place, relieving us of the punishment death reveals with true life. God’s death is better news than accepting death as natural and normal. Death is not life. Jesus is life for the dying. God Himself broke the cycle of death. Do not trust in potentially slightly better DNA for your children, rather trust in Christ who rose from the dead to give all life. Believing in His Word, giving us victory in the life-giving flesh of Jesus, we have hope at the most personal level – not just the species or government plane. God the Father offers us life in the Word of Christ to fill us with His Spirit to love, not to blindly and sullenly accept death.

You are more than fodder for natural selection. You were chosen to be God’s child to live – not just a few years – but in His kingdom forever, giving you eternal purpose and value, and righteous purposes right now. Holiness is your calling. Do not accept this world’s version of death as gospel news. 

We do not fear or worship death. We have a real, personal hope in Jesus to believe and live in – despite the veil of death that covers all things for now. But the minds of evolutionists are hardened. For to this day, when they read the old covenant, and teach their evolutionist religion of brutality and death, that same veil remains unlifted, because only through Christ is it taken away. (2 Cor. 3:14). 

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Published: 07 April 2022 07 April 2022

Last Updated: 07 April 2022 07 April 2022

Pastor's Pen 03/23/2022

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Published: 24 March 2022 24 March 2022

Last Updated: 24 March 2022 24 March 2022

New Bible Translations

A Message from Pastor Hale

There are many Bible translations and more each day. Not all the books that say "Holy Bible" on them, treat the words the same though. Many modern translations have an agenda, especially in regard to specific language which is considered impolite, offensive, or even hate speech today. So there is a version made to suit each type of sinner. Many translations are decent, though none are inspired translations, which is a fact to keep in mind.

The LCMS had to move away from the NIV in 2011, due to revisions made to the 1981 edition. There is no easy way to tell – the name was not changed. Only the copyright changed, which is somewhat deliberately confusing. God does not change. Yet, language does. Many appreciate the KJV, which is a good translation, but it is not perfect. The real problem with it is not the translating in it, but the way the English has changed. We don't speak as we pray the Lord's Prayer anymore. Many words have changed meaning, so that unless one was raised on it or knows it well, the KJV is difficult to parse and understand.

All of us must work with translations, and we can have confidence in a good translation. God's Word is the power for salvation to all who believe. The Bible is God’s Word. But translations can be done poorly or well. Not all are faithful to the Word as the Spirit gave it. If a Bible translation seeks to accommodate God’s inspired language to the secular sensitivities of sinners, it is not faithful or as useful. This is the attempt to make God’s Word on the same level as man’s word.

If the Bible only seeks to give a perspective adjustment – it is not seen as an authority. We are to be under God’s Word – because He speaks to us in it. To change the text, as we best know it, based on what the reader expects – rather than furthering understandability – is a heinous sin. We are to submit to the Word, not change it to fit with us. 

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Published: 22 March 2022 22 March 2022

Last Updated: 22 March 2022 22 March 2022

Pastor's Pen 03/09/2022

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Published: 22 March 2022 22 March 2022

Last Updated: 22 March 2022 22 March 2022