Planned Parenthood’s been caught with the ugly stains of racism on its hands again (Read the latest controversy here). This should come as no surprise: Planned Parenthood’s founder was a racist (see this post) and every year in this country Planned Parenthood kills more unborn black children than any other race.
This should be no shock (coming from an organization that promotes and carries out genocide) when they make tasteless propaganda cartoons like this.
I expect outrage from the civil activist of our time. Watch out Planned Parenthood, any day now the “Reverend” Jesse Jackson, the “Reverend” Al Sharpton, Oprah Winfrey, Whoopie Goldberg, and Jeremiah Wright are going to publically denounce your organization’s genocide of black children. Any day now they’ll be organizing boycotts. Any day now they’ll be organizing marches. Any time now . . . yup . . . it’s just a matter of time . . . just wait . . . still waiting . . .
The silence is deafening.
I leave you with this 8 minute video of John Piper on the topic of racism and abortion.
The all-important words are “while we were enemies.” This is when “we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10). While we were enemies. In other words, the first “change” was God’s, not ours. We were still enemies. Not that we were consciously on the warpath. Most people don’t feel conscious hostility to God. The hostility is manifest more subtly with a quiet insubordination and indifference. The Bible describes it like this: “The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Romans 8:7).
The resounding cry of freedom in the Bible is, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). In other words, be free! Don’t be duped by the gurus of the age. They are here today and gone tomorrow. One enslaving fad follows another. Thirty years from now today’s tattoos will not be marks of freedom, but incredible reminders of conformity.
I am so grateful for those who stand up for truth while the majority of voices on the broad path yell “compromise, compromise!” In this 3-minute video you will hear John Piper confront the false gospel of health, wealth, and prosperity with the utmost passion for proclaiming truth while confronting error.
Forgiveness costs us nothing. All our costly obedience is the fruit, not the root, of being forgiven. That’s why we call it grace. But it cost Jesus His life. That is why we call it just. Oh, how precious is the news that God does not hold our sins against us! And how beautiful is Christ, whose blood made it right for God to do this.
Surely this is the way we should understand the sufferings and death of Christ. They have to do with me. They are about Christ’s love for me personally. It is my sin that cuts me off from God, not sin in general. It is my hard-heartedness and spiritual numbness that demean the worth of Christ. I am lost and perishing. When it comes to salvation, I have forfeited all claim on justice. All I can do is plead for mercy.
If the Son of God had gone from incarnation to the cross without a life of temptation and pain to test His righteousness and His love, He would not be a suitable Savior for fallen man. His suffering not only absorbed the wrath of God. It also fulfilled His true humanity and made Him able to call us brothers and sisters (Hebrews 2:17).
Click on the link to listen streaming, or right click on the link and click “Save As” (Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As” (Mozilla) to save to your computer. From there you can burn this to a CD or upload it to your MP3 player.
Let us not trifle with God or trivialize His love. We will never stand in awe of being loved by God until we reckon with the seriousness of our sin and the justice of His wrath against us. But when, by grace, we waken to our unworthiness, then we may look at the suffering and death of Christ and say, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the [wrath-absorbing] propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10).
This is the meaning of the word “propitiation” in . . . Romans 3:25. It refers to the removal of God’s wrath by providing a substitute. The substitute is provided by God Himself. The substitute, Jesus Christ, does not just cancel the wrath; He adsorbs it and diverts it from us to Himself. God’s wrath is just, and it was spent, not withdrawn.
Therefore sin is not small, because it is not against a small Sovereign. The seriousness of an insult rises with the dignity of the one insulted. The Creator of the universe is infinitely worthy of respect and admiration and loyalty. Therefore, failure to love him is not trivial–it is treason. It defames God and destroys human happiness.
What if Jesus had returned to Bethlehem and visited the Innkeeper who provided Mary and Joseph the stable? And what if this Innkeeper lost his own son to Herod’s soldiers when they killed all the baby boys two and under? John Piper explores this scenario in his short story entitled The Innkeeper. It’s an instant Christmas classic.
If you wish to download the audio version (which includes a brief explanation of the origin of the story), click here.
Click on the link to listen streaming, or right click on the link and click “Save As” (Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As” (Mozilla) to save to your computer. From there you can burn this to a CD or upload it to your MP3 player.
If God were not just, there would be no demand for His Son to suffer and die. And if God were not loving, there would be no willingness for His Son to suffer and die. But God is both just and loving. Therefore His love is willing to meet the demands of His justice.
We Christians are ashamed of many of our ancestors who did not act in the spirit of Christ. No doubt there are traces of this plague in our own souls. But true Christianity–which is radically different from Western culture, and may not be found in many Christian churches–renounces the advance of religion by means of violence. “My kingdom is not of this world,” Jesus said. “If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting” (John 18:36). The way of the cross is the way of suffering. Christians are called to die, not kill, in order to show how they are loved by Christ.
God intends for the afflictions of Christ to be presented to the world through the afflictions of His people. God really means for the body of Christ, the Church, to experience some of the suffering He experienced so that when we proclaim the cross as the way to life, people will see the marks of the cross in us and feel the love of the cross from us.
When Paul says, “If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink,” he does not mean, “Let’s all become lechers.” He means, there is a normal, simple, comfortable, ordinary life of human delights that we may enjoy with no troubling thoughts of heaven or hell or sin or holiness or God–if there is no resurrection from the dead. And what stunned me about this train of thought is that many professing Christians seem to aim at just this, and call it Christianity. Paul did not see his relation to Christ as the key to maximizing his physical comforts and pleasures in this life.
I can certainly relate to the type of people Piper is referring to in this video clip. I run into them all the time while street witnessing. They continue to live just like the world but profess to be “Christians” because they go to such and such church. They prayed the prayer and got their ticket punched! Here’s a perfect example.
I know, I know, I am jumping the gun here regarding Christmas, but I found a video to John Piper’s great story The Innkeeper. For those who never heard The Innkeeper before, you’re in for a touching treat.
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