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Dear brothers and sisters,

This past Friday when the announcement came that the Supreme Court of the United States effectively overturned the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision, I shouted “Hallelujah!”, I wept, and I thanked God for his answer to many prayers of many years by many people.  Thank the Lord that five Supreme Court Justices, led by Justice Alito (whose report for the majority is masterful) finally said what had to be said:  The Constitution of the United States nowhere grants the right to a person to kill an unborn child.   The minority of the justices could not counter that point because there is simply no counter to it.  Praise the Lord that the Constitution has been upheld and that, on the federal level, the unborn are once again accorded the right to life. 

However, it is obvious that this decision has created another fissure in our already deeply divided land. We should not be surprised at the vehement support for the killing of the unborn.   Even in Old Testament times, pagans and, for a time, the Lord’s professed people, sacrificed their children to Moloch, cf. Leviticus 18:21.   Modern “abortion” is, in many cases, modern “Moloch worship” in which unborn children (and sometimes already born children) are sacrificed because a person has made an idol of his or her will, e..g. “My body, my choice’" This should break our hearts, but it should not surprise us if we are at all familiar with our Bibles. We should weep when we hear (as I heard shortly after the SCOTUS decision was announced) “The tragedy now is that women will have to bring their pregnancies to term.”  The tragedy is that so many in our culure think this way.  Again, this should break our hearts.

How, as Christians, should we respond to this cultural divide that adds to the threat of another national civil war?  

  1. Pray for states that will respond (and have already begun responding) to the SCOTUS decision by enacting laws that protect the unborn.  Ideally, life should be protected from the point of conception – which Is when life begins.  Laws will differ, but we should pray for legislation that provides maximum protection for the unborn.   Pray that there be consistency in the various legislative acts.   We should also pray for the defeat of legislation that allows for the killing of the unborn at any stage of pregnancy, particularly legislation that allows for the killing of a child after birth.

  2. Pray for the safety of the Supreme Court justices who were part of the majority decision.   Not a few of the groups that are so hysterically opposing the SCOTUS action are anarchists.   God forbid that one or more of the SCOTUS justices be assassinated.    Likewise, pray for the protection of Pro-Life and Crisis Pregnancy Centers like Soundview Pregnancy Services. 

  3. Do not give in to carnal anger as you hear and see the vitriolic and often utterly irrational responses of those angered by the SCOTUS decision.   Remember that “the wrath of man does not work the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).   At the same time it is imperative that, as Christians, we boldly but graciously stand for what is right as we interact with those who favor the right of a person to kill a child in the mother’s womb.   I urge you NOT to use euphemisms like “abortion”, “a woman’s right to choose”, or “reproductive rights.”    Use the correct term:  Infanticide, i.e. the genocide of the unborn or newly born.  Don’t respond in anger, but speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

  4. Pray that we will be able to minister to women who have “unwanted pregnancies” and are now in a quandary regarding what to do.   Even in states like our own, which are promising to become “sanctuary states” for infanticide, women will still be agonizing as they wonder whether to terminate their pregnancies by surgical or other medical procedures.  We should renew and increase our support for crisis pregnancy ministries like Soundview Pregnancy Services, and we should be willing to open our hearts and our homes to hurting and confused women who do not need slogans and signs, but who do need listening ears and welcoming arms.

May the Lord make The Haven, OPC to be a haven for mothers-to-be and for mothers who need to hear and see the love of the Great Shepherd who carries the lambs in his bosom (Isaiah 40:11) and who still graciously calls, “Let the little children to come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of God” (Mark 10:14).

Your servant in the Great Shepherd and the King of Kings,       

Pastor Shishko