by Steve Crain
“A good thing gone bad.”
When I hear that phrase, I usually think of this statement a pastor made many years ago: “Some things that begin in the Spirit end in the flesh.”
Someone said, “The seeds of its own destruction are inherent in the conception of a thing.”
Many churches begin with great visions and enjoy successes for years, but some die or “go bad” because of “sin in the camp,” to use on Old Testament expression.
The nature of things in this fallen world is to degenerate. Stuff tends to age and fall apart.
Marriages often begin with pure motives and wonderful plans, but life can deal deadly blows to couples. A husband or wife is often blindsided by sin or just the plain hardships that come with living.
A person who has been dramatically saved by Christ can “drift too far from the shore,” to use the words from an old song, and end up with shipwrecked faith. Though he may repent and still claim a belief in Christ, the drifter may lose his testimony, influence and even his self-respect.
I often think of King Solomon. He started out with humility, joy and wisdom, but his sensitivity to the beauty of wisdom and truth gave way to his sensitivity to physical beauty and the lusts of his flesh.
Many a good thing can go bad. We must trust Christ and be on guard against our fallen natures.
Jesus said, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Someone said, “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
'Life Is Hard, but God Is Good'
by Steve Crain
Many vehicles are parked close to the Wal-Mart nearest to our Southern Pines, N.C., home on a recent Saturday afternoon, so I stop in front of a store entrance.
“I’ll wait in the car and watch for you to come out,” I tell my wife Carol.
She exits our Buick and walks through an auto-opening door leading to a world of merchandise housed in the “big box store.”
Planning to drive back to that entrance when Carol reappears from the belly of Wally World, I motor to a vacant parking space about 200 feet away, roll down some windows, cut the motor and tune to 90.3 FM, an AFR (American Family Radio) station.
I’m feeling a bit nostalgic as I watch people move in and out of Wal-Mart, and then AFR sends out a slow, soul-gripping song containing these words: “Life is hard / The world is cold / We’re barely young / And then we’re old / But every falling tear is always understood / Life is hard, but God is good.”
I feel moisture in my eyes. Those simple lyrics cause me to think about life and my wife. I’d just seen Carol walk into Wal-Mart, using her metal cane as she moved along. She broke her left ankle over three years ago. For a few seconds, I picture her as she appeared during my army days, when we were first married and lived for short times in Denver, Colorado, and Salinas, California. Since then, we’ve learned that life can be hard and sometimes the world can be cold.
I used to wonder why I’d hear older people say, “It seems like only yesterday when….” The passing of time surely couldn’t be that shocking, I’d think when I heard that expression. Now I know more of the meaning of the song’s words: “We’re barely young and then we’re old.”
Is every falling tear always understood?
Yes, I think that statement from the radio song is true. Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing (a penny)? And one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father (knowing it)…the very hairs of your head are numbered” (Matthew 10:29-30).
God knows our sorrows.
Isaiah prophesied that Jesus himself would be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
In the 1970s, Carol and I used to sing “For Those Tears I Died” by Marsha J. and Russ Stevens. Here are the words of that song’s chorus: “And Jesus said, ‘Come to the water, stand by my side / I know you are thirsty, you won’t be denied / I felt every tear drop, when in darkness you cried / And I strove to remind you / It’s for those tears I died.’”
When Jesus’ friend Lazarus grew sick, Mary and Martha sent for Jesus to come and pray for Lazarus, their brother. Jesus arrived four days after Lazarus died. After talking to the grieving sisters and seeing Lazarus’ friends weeping, Jesus became deeply troubled. The scriptures record that “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). He then ordered the stone removed from the tomb and prayed aloud to his Father, ordering Lazarus to come out. Though Jesus resurrected Lazarus, he wept before he raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus cried when he saw others weeping and felt their sorrow.
Yes, I believe that Jesus understands falling tears.
I’ve thought a lot about that radio song’s last words: “Life is hard, but God is good.”
Satan wants us to doubt God’s goodness. The Devil’s first Bible-recorded words, “Yea, hath God said…?,” challenged God’s Word and integrity. Satan wanted Eve to believe that God was cheating her of knowledge, that God wasn’t honest and loving. If Satan can get someone to doubt that God is who He says He is in the Bible, then that person’s “foundation upon which Christian faith can build” begins to crumble.
Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” and St. John wrote, “He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. Love is manifested in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:8-9).
“Life is hard, but God is good.”
Many vehicles are parked close to the Wal-Mart nearest to our Southern Pines, N.C., home on a recent Saturday afternoon, so I stop in front of a store entrance.
“I’ll wait in the car and watch for you to come out,” I tell my wife Carol.
She exits our Buick and walks through an auto-opening door leading to a world of merchandise housed in the “big box store.”
Planning to drive back to that entrance when Carol reappears from the belly of Wally World, I motor to a vacant parking space about 200 feet away, roll down some windows, cut the motor and tune to 90.3 FM, an AFR (American Family Radio) station.
I’m feeling a bit nostalgic as I watch people move in and out of Wal-Mart, and then AFR sends out a slow, soul-gripping song containing these words: “Life is hard / The world is cold / We’re barely young / And then we’re old / But every falling tear is always understood / Life is hard, but God is good.”
I feel moisture in my eyes. Those simple lyrics cause me to think about life and my wife. I’d just seen Carol walk into Wal-Mart, using her metal cane as she moved along. She broke her left ankle over three years ago. For a few seconds, I picture her as she appeared during my army days, when we were first married and lived for short times in Denver, Colorado, and Salinas, California. Since then, we’ve learned that life can be hard and sometimes the world can be cold.
I used to wonder why I’d hear older people say, “It seems like only yesterday when….” The passing of time surely couldn’t be that shocking, I’d think when I heard that expression. Now I know more of the meaning of the song’s words: “We’re barely young and then we’re old.”
Is every falling tear always understood?
Yes, I think that statement from the radio song is true. Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing (a penny)? And one of them shall not fall to the ground without your Father (knowing it)…the very hairs of your head are numbered” (Matthew 10:29-30).
God knows our sorrows.
Isaiah prophesied that Jesus himself would be “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).
In the 1970s, Carol and I used to sing “For Those Tears I Died” by Marsha J. and Russ Stevens. Here are the words of that song’s chorus: “And Jesus said, ‘Come to the water, stand by my side / I know you are thirsty, you won’t be denied / I felt every tear drop, when in darkness you cried / And I strove to remind you / It’s for those tears I died.’”
When Jesus’ friend Lazarus grew sick, Mary and Martha sent for Jesus to come and pray for Lazarus, their brother. Jesus arrived four days after Lazarus died. After talking to the grieving sisters and seeing Lazarus’ friends weeping, Jesus became deeply troubled. The scriptures record that “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). He then ordered the stone removed from the tomb and prayed aloud to his Father, ordering Lazarus to come out. Though Jesus resurrected Lazarus, he wept before he raised Lazarus from the dead. Jesus cried when he saw others weeping and felt their sorrow.
Yes, I believe that Jesus understands falling tears.
I’ve thought a lot about that radio song’s last words: “Life is hard, but God is good.”
Satan wants us to doubt God’s goodness. The Devil’s first Bible-recorded words, “Yea, hath God said…?,” challenged God’s Word and integrity. Satan wanted Eve to believe that God was cheating her of knowledge, that God wasn’t honest and loving. If Satan can get someone to doubt that God is who He says He is in the Bible, then that person’s “foundation upon which Christian faith can build” begins to crumble.
Jesus said, “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” and St. John wrote, “He who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, for God is love. Love is manifested in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him” (1 John 4:8-9).
“Life is hard, but God is good.”
Saturday, January 21, 2012
'Beyonce Has Her Baby' - Beulah Hill Baptist Church Sign 'Photo-Shopped'
Ken Loyd of Moore County, N.C., and I write about the "sign" fiasco:
“Officials at Beulah Hill Baptist Church in Moore County, N.C., want to make one thing very clear: They do not think Beyonce [a famous popular singer] and Jay-Z’s newborn baby is Satan,” wrote James Halpin, staff writer for the Fayetteville Observer.
Halpin reports that Dr. Curtis Barbery, pastor at Beulah Hill Baptist, says church leaders have been inundated at home and work by callers from across the country wondering about a photo circulating on the Internet that appears to show the church’s sign with the phrase, “Beyonce had her baby. Satan is on Earth.”
Callers, apparently learning about the sign from celebrity gossip websites like TMZ.com, have been so numerous that officials at the church had to turn off the phone at one point, Barbery said.
The picture is a fake, Barbery noted, adding that the church has no quarrel with baby Blue Ivy Carter or her parents, Beyonce and Jay-Z, both singers. Barbery said he believes somebody doctored a photo of the church’s sign and posted it to the Web.
Ken Loyd, a retired elementary school teacher and a pianist for Beulah Hill Baptist, wrote an article about the uproar over the doctored photo. Here is Ken’s article about the nationwide attention his church received:
The photo was a fraud and had certainly been “photo-shopped” by a clever mischief-maker, still unidentified. But it went viral, gaining attention from local newspapers, TV stations, and some national outlets. Some were offended; some were outraged; others took it lightly.
Our pastor, Dr. Curtis Barbery, handled the incident graciously. He pointed out to interviewers that our church is not an extremist group; that our message is of the love of Christ, not one of condemnation. He employed his wit and wisdom to defuse the situation, both for his congregation and for a public that wanted to be reassured what the church was all about.
He pointed out that although the perpetrator may have wished to imply that Beyonce’s baby IS Satan, that is a total falsehood. He stated that no little baby is the devil and that our church has nothing but love for both baby and mother. He went on to say that Satan has been on this earth for a long, long time – all the way back to the garden of Eden.
Therefore, whoever posted the Internet message, whether their intent was humorous or malicious, inadvertently made two true statements. Not only is Satan in this world, the Bible acknowledges he is “the prince of this world.” Dr. Barbery enumerated another twenty names by which various scriptures refer to Satan. Some of the most descriptive ones are Father of Darkness, our adversary, the enemy, the tempter, the destroyer, father of lies, sower of discord, and deceiver.
Here are some points Dr. Barbery made in his sermon the Sunday after the Internet uproar:
1. Satan, or Lucifer, went from being an Angel of Light to Father of Darkness.
2. Satan rebelled against God and was cast down from heaven (as some believe is portrayed in Isaiah 14:12). He was cursed in Genesis 3:15. Sin was first found in him, then transmitted to humankind.
3. Satan endorsed Herod’s attempt to kill the baby Jesus.
4. Through his temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, he sought to destroy the Lord’s mission, ministry and testimony. He does the same thing to believers today: “The devil got into religious folks and hasn’t quit.”
5. God didn’t make sin, but He allowed it.
6. Satan wants to deceive the world as to the identity of Christ.
7. The devil also wants to pervert the Bible and make it of no effect.
In closing remarks, Dr. Barbery proclaimed that in His death and resurrection, Jesus took the keys to hell, death and the grave. Barbery chuckled and said, “The devil doesn’t even have the keys to his own house! What Satan thought was his victory [the crucifixion of Jesus] was his Waterloo.”
The prophet Hosea said: “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
The apostle Paul quoted those questions and answered them in I Corinthians 15: 56-57: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In the end, the words on the church sign meant little in and of themselves. But they led to a renewed call for vigilance in a sin-sick world, where, as Peter says in I Peter 5:8: “Be self-controlled and alert. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.”
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Christmas Memories
By Steve Crain
Many people have pleasant Christmas memories.
Jan Waters, who attends Faith Temple Church in Taylors, S.C., says, “One of my favorite memories about Christmas is when I was small I would sit by our fireplace. The fire warmed me to the bone. The heat coming from that fire is [like] the warmth I felt when Jesus came into my heart. My mom would peel me a navel orange, and I would sit by the fire and eat my orange. The orange was so juicy and sweet. I usually ate two of them. The smell of a fireplace was and still is so comforting to me. Now that I am on my own, I do not have the luxury of doing that any more. How times have changed.”
Christmastime may stir happy memories but can cause us to think of losses, too.
Brenda Locklear of Laurinburg, N.C., works in a carpet-dyeing plant. I recently asked Brenda, a Christian grandmother with Lumbee Indian ancestry, to tell me something about her childhood memories of Christmas.
“A shoebox,” she responded. Moisture filled her eyes, and she lifted a hand to wipe away a tear.
“A shoebox?” I asked, feeling nervous about possibly upsetting a longtime friend and coworker.
Brenda explained, “When we’d get our shoes to go to school each fall, Mama would say, ‘Keep your box.’”
Her late mother used those shoeboxes for her children’s Christmas gifts.
Brenda grew up in rural Hoke County, N.C. She had two older brothers and was born the third of six children (three boys, three girls). Her mother was unmarried.
“Did she wrap the boxes for you?” I asked.
“We couldn’t afford wrapping paper,” Brenda said. “In the box would be an apple, an orange, some nuts and candy – hard candy, Christmas candy, and there wouldn’t be much of that. That’s all she could afford.”
Brenda said she, being the oldest girl in her family, babysat younger siblings while her mother and brothers worked as sharecroppers, raising tobacco.
“I never knew my father – never knew what a father was,” Brenda said, noting that she and her baby brother share the same father. When she graduated from high school, a man she thought could be her father, told her he was.
She asked her mother if that man was telling the truth. Brenda recalls that her mother said, “Well, if he says it, you must be his.”
“She wouldn’t admit it,” Brenda said.
Brenda’s maternal grandmother, Nurseann Locklear, took her to church. (Nurseann’s husband died of a heart attack at age 29. She later became engaged to a soldier who died overseas before they could marry. Nurseann remained single until the end of her long life.)
“I always went to church,” Brenda says. “It was a little country church.”
She and her husband, Mike, accepted Christ early in their marriage, she says. They faithfully attend a Church of God of Prophecy and have two adult daughters, four grandsons and a granddaughter. I pray that Brenda enjoys a wonderful Christmas, this year, and that Christ continues healing hurts and disappointments she has experienced.
My early memories of Christmas include a drama presented at Gum Springs Pentecostal Holiness Church in Greenville County, S.C. I was old enough to read and was given a part in that “play” about a modern family at Christmastime. My 3-years-younger sister, Shirley, had a part, too. I recall the darkened church and the pulpit moved aside to make way for a couch. The troubled family featured in the play ended up having a Merry Christmas, with the Lord’s help.
In those days, Gum Springs Church usually gave a large grocery bag of fruit to each family attending the Sunday night service preceding Christmas. Nowadays, a bag of fruit might not mean much, but I recall one family who showed up at our church just to get a Christmas bag of fruit. (At least I, as a child, suspected that’s why that family came.) When fruit bags were presented at the end of the service, that family’s young mother left her two small children and her husband sitting on a pew near the back of the church. She walked forward and received a bag of fruit. I can still envision her thin face and long, wispy, straight brown hair. I never saw that family, again, but the presence of that mother and her family at that service caused me to think about people who lived outside our church. I wondered if they had the hope I had – a hope in Jesus Christ encouraged by folk in my church who took time to teach me about Christ, pray with me to receive Christ and patiently encourage me to participate in a Christmas play.
Father, please fill hearts with Christ’s love and healing during this Christmas season, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Many people have pleasant Christmas memories.
Jan Waters, who attends Faith Temple Church in Taylors, S.C., says, “One of my favorite memories about Christmas is when I was small I would sit by our fireplace. The fire warmed me to the bone. The heat coming from that fire is [like] the warmth I felt when Jesus came into my heart. My mom would peel me a navel orange, and I would sit by the fire and eat my orange. The orange was so juicy and sweet. I usually ate two of them. The smell of a fireplace was and still is so comforting to me. Now that I am on my own, I do not have the luxury of doing that any more. How times have changed.”
Christmastime may stir happy memories but can cause us to think of losses, too.
Brenda Locklear of Laurinburg, N.C., works in a carpet-dyeing plant. I recently asked Brenda, a Christian grandmother with Lumbee Indian ancestry, to tell me something about her childhood memories of Christmas.
“A shoebox,” she responded. Moisture filled her eyes, and she lifted a hand to wipe away a tear.
“A shoebox?” I asked, feeling nervous about possibly upsetting a longtime friend and coworker.
Brenda explained, “When we’d get our shoes to go to school each fall, Mama would say, ‘Keep your box.’”
Her late mother used those shoeboxes for her children’s Christmas gifts.
Brenda grew up in rural Hoke County, N.C. She had two older brothers and was born the third of six children (three boys, three girls). Her mother was unmarried.
“Did she wrap the boxes for you?” I asked.
“We couldn’t afford wrapping paper,” Brenda said. “In the box would be an apple, an orange, some nuts and candy – hard candy, Christmas candy, and there wouldn’t be much of that. That’s all she could afford.”
Brenda said she, being the oldest girl in her family, babysat younger siblings while her mother and brothers worked as sharecroppers, raising tobacco.
“I never knew my father – never knew what a father was,” Brenda said, noting that she and her baby brother share the same father. When she graduated from high school, a man she thought could be her father, told her he was.
She asked her mother if that man was telling the truth. Brenda recalls that her mother said, “Well, if he says it, you must be his.”
“She wouldn’t admit it,” Brenda said.
Brenda’s maternal grandmother, Nurseann Locklear, took her to church. (Nurseann’s husband died of a heart attack at age 29. She later became engaged to a soldier who died overseas before they could marry. Nurseann remained single until the end of her long life.)
“I always went to church,” Brenda says. “It was a little country church.”
She and her husband, Mike, accepted Christ early in their marriage, she says. They faithfully attend a Church of God of Prophecy and have two adult daughters, four grandsons and a granddaughter. I pray that Brenda enjoys a wonderful Christmas, this year, and that Christ continues healing hurts and disappointments she has experienced.
My early memories of Christmas include a drama presented at Gum Springs Pentecostal Holiness Church in Greenville County, S.C. I was old enough to read and was given a part in that “play” about a modern family at Christmastime. My 3-years-younger sister, Shirley, had a part, too. I recall the darkened church and the pulpit moved aside to make way for a couch. The troubled family featured in the play ended up having a Merry Christmas, with the Lord’s help.
In those days, Gum Springs Church usually gave a large grocery bag of fruit to each family attending the Sunday night service preceding Christmas. Nowadays, a bag of fruit might not mean much, but I recall one family who showed up at our church just to get a Christmas bag of fruit. (At least I, as a child, suspected that’s why that family came.) When fruit bags were presented at the end of the service, that family’s young mother left her two small children and her husband sitting on a pew near the back of the church. She walked forward and received a bag of fruit. I can still envision her thin face and long, wispy, straight brown hair. I never saw that family, again, but the presence of that mother and her family at that service caused me to think about people who lived outside our church. I wondered if they had the hope I had – a hope in Jesus Christ encouraged by folk in my church who took time to teach me about Christ, pray with me to receive Christ and patiently encourage me to participate in a Christmas play.
Father, please fill hearts with Christ’s love and healing during this Christmas season, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Abby Johnson, Prolife Advocate, Speaks in Southern Pines, N.C.
By Steve Crain
Abbey Johnson, an American prolife activist and author of “unPlanned,” spoke in the auditorium of Pinecrest High School in Southern Pines, N.C., on the evening of September 10, 2011.
She worked as a Planned Parenthood clinic director but resigned in October 2009, she says, after watching an abortion on ultrasound.
Johnson, 31, was raised in a “conservative, pro-life family” from Texas but began volunteering for Planned Parenthood after seeing its booth at a fair at her college. She said she hadn’t heard of the group before, didn’t know [at first] that they performed abortions. She stated that Planned Parenthood told her they wanted to reduce the number of abortions. Johnson volunteered in 2001and progressed to the position of community services director. She worked at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Texas, for eight years, escorting women into the clinic from their cars and eventually working as director of that clinic.
She serves as the chief research strategist for Live Action, a pro-life organization known for conducting sting operations against Planned Parenthood clinics. She holds a B.S. in psychology from Texas A&M University and a M.A. in counseling from Sam Houston State University. She lives (in 2011) in Austin, Texas, with her husband and 4-year-old daughter.
On Sept. 10, 2011, Johnson, sponsored by the Life Care Pregnancy Center of Carthage, N.C., spoke to about 175 people gathered at Pinecrest High School.
Monsignor Jeffrey Ingram gave an invocation, praying, “Heavenly Father, you have given us your Son as the Truth. … Help us to have a great understanding and respect for human life … leave the culture of death behind and look to a culture of life, protecting those who cannot protect themselves.”
Suzanne Clendenin, executive director of the Life Care Pregnancy Center of Carthage, introduced Johnson to the audience.
Abby Johnson Tells of ‘Signs’
Johnson told the following two stories about people who received “signs” concerning abortion decisions.
She said that one girl was pregnant and wanted a sign from God as to whether or not to abort her baby. As the girl rode in the back seat of a friend’s car, she saw a pregnancy center billboard and typed the center’s number into her phone. She later called the center but received no return call.
The girl made an appointment for an abortion. As she was about to enter the abortion clinic, a young pro-life worker, stationed outside that clinic, called to the girl and asked what she could do to help.
The girl told her looking-for-a-sign story to the pro-life lady, letting her know she called a pregnancy center and received no return call.
“What if I’m your sign?” the prolife lady asked. “What is your name?”
The girl said, “My name is Elizabeth.”
“My name is Elizabeth,” the lady said.
“That was her sign,” Johnson said. “She now has a 6-month-old boy.
Johnson told another “sign” story.
A lady visiting an abortion clinic was sent to a nearby prolife pregnancy center to get a free ultrasound screening. Abortion clinics use ultrasound images to estimate how large a baby is before he is aborted.
The lady asked a prolife center attendant for the ultrasound screening but told the attendant she wanted no lectures about keeping her baby.
While performing the ultrasound, the pregnancy center attendant wondered what she could say to help the lady on the table change her mind about aborting her baby.
The attendant thought of these words and voiced them the lady: “Would you like to touch your baby’s hand?”
The woman on the table was startled but placed her hand on her stomach, as the technician directed her to do. Then, the lady on the table saw, on the ultrasound screen, her baby inside her body reach up and touch the top of her womb. Their hands were close.
“She now has a 2-year-old daughter,” Johnson said.
Getting Serious
“If the majority of Americans were really prolife, the abortion numbers wouldn’t be increasing each year. … One in three of those having abortions wouldn’t be ‘Christians,’” Johnson said. (She recommended Lifenews.com as a good source of prolife information.)
She said many ministers don’t take a stand from the pulpit against abortion. There are over 300,000 organized churches in the U.S., she noted.
“One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do is look my parents in the face and say, ‘I have killed two of your grandchildren,’” Johnson said. “I believe this is a spiritual battle, do you? I see so many groups fighting each other. … Let’s get together for these babies. Four thousand children, every day, are dying, because we’re not really ready to get serious.”
Worked for Planned Parenthood
Johnson worked eight years for Planned Parenthood.
“One of the jobs I used to do was in the POC (Products of Conception) lab,” Johnson said. “You’re not allowed to say ‘baby’ in an abortion lab. There’s a POC person in each lab. They take the tissue and dump it into a Pyrex-type holder and piece the baby back together. If you’re missing a part of the baby, it could cause infection in the mother.”
John said the POC job didn’t bother her and that she thought the process was interesting.
“I had to buy leather tennis shoes,” she said. “I got blood on my shoes and had to throw them into the washer each day. Abortion is graphic. It didn’t bother me. I looked at that [body parts] in a dish all the time. It didn’t bother me."
The abortion clinic Johnson worked for didn’t get all the baby-parts retrieved from the body of one woman, and that woman ended up in the hospital a week later.
“We had left a leg in her uterus,” Johnson said. “We didn’t want her to go to the media. We needed to make her a monetary offer, for she was mad, ready to go to the media.”
The abortion clinic came up with money and told Johnson to give the woman an agreed-upon check and get her to sign off.
“We gave her $897,” Johnson said, noting that the lady had paid $550 for her abortion. “We thought that was fair. That’s how we treated women. You see, guys, when I hear about how Planned Parenthood helps people, I shake my head. I lied to women every day and didn’t even know it. … I was good at it.”
Selling Abortions
Planned Parenthood honored Abby Johnson as a regional affiliate employee of the year in 2008.
“I could sell about anybody on abortion,” Johnson said. “We gave them promise of a better career. … [Telling them that] to kill their child was a smart parenting decision. … Planned Parenthood knew the lies we were telling were very important. Planned Parenthood gave us this list – all of us who counseled women to have abortions. We had a sheet: ‘Answers to Tough Questions.’”
Johnson said question number one on that sheet was “Will my baby feel this?”
The scripted answer was “No, the fetus has no sensory development until 28 weeks.”
“They wouldn’t believe their baby was going to be in pain and [they then would] have an abortion,” Johnson said, adding that another question on the clinic prompt sheet was “Will God ever forgive me?”
Johnson said, “We asked back, ‘Do you believe God is a forgiving God? Don’t you think he knows you’re in a tough position, right now, and you’re doing what’s best for your family?’”
“We liked our jobs, our paychecks,” Johnson said. “It’s great, until one day you figure out that you’ve been lied to and you’ve been lying to other people. And that’s what happened to me.”
The Turning Point
Johnson said a doctor who was new to her clinic wanted her to help him with an ultrasound-guided abortion, which is a very unusual procedure at an abortion clinic. The Houston, Texas, clinic where Johnson worked was performing 75 abortions a day and open for business six days per week, she said. She was “called in” to help the new doctor perform the ultrasound-guided abortion.
“My job was to hold the ultrasound probe during the abortion,” she said, noting that she had been promised she would, in time, become the COO [“chief operating officer,” in charge of daily business] of the clinic. “I thought it would be good to learn a new technique [ultrasound-guided abortion].”
She said there was no medical reason for the ultrasound, but an abortion clinic can use an ultrasound image to measure the baby and know how much to charge for that abortion. (She inferred that charges for each abortion seemed to be based on the size of each aborted baby.)
Johnson saw the baby on the video screen, during the ultrasound-guided procedure.
“I’m looking at this screen and kind of have an anxious feeling in my stomach,” she said. “The fetus was 13 weeks along and wouldn’t feel anything, I thought.”
The doctor placed a suction tube into the patient’s uterus.
“I saw this 13-week-old fetus recoil and try to move away from the instrument,” Johnson said. “I saw this child try to flee. I didn’t want to look but couldn’t stop looking. This can’t be really happening, I thought. Arms and legs were flailing about. I can’t tell you for sure that the baby felt pain, but if someone walked into this room with a gun … we’d be screaming, running like wild bandits … and that’s exactly what I saw on that ultrasound screen. That baby was frantic.”
Johnson said she recalled the attending doctor saying, “Beam me up, Scotty,” as he turned on the suction.
“The worst part was standing there and witnessing this tiny defenseless child struggling and fighting for his life,” she said. “I watched a child die right before my face. The biggest tragedy is it’s happening 4,000 times a day.
“If we saw a 2-year-old stomped by her dad, what would we do? Would we show preference for a 2-year-old over 4,000 unborn everyday? Would we say to a 2-year-old, ‘You deserve better,” and to the 4, 000, ‘Not so much’?”
Johnson said the prolife effort is not just a movement.
“This is ‘the’ movement, the cause. … Everything else is secondary to the right to live,” she said. “Thirty-three percent of our population is not here because of abortion. There’s no gray, when it comes to the murder of children – none. Somebody’s waiting for you to get involved. We have to be doing this because this is the right thing to do. I do 10 to 15 events like this every month.”
Funds for Abortions
Johnson said some charities, such as the following, give money to Planned Parenthood: the March of Dimes Foundation, American Diabetes Association, American Cancer Society, Relay for Life and the Girl Scout Cookie program.
“The money you give to this organization [Life Care Pregnancy Center] – not a penny of it is going to kill babies. … I want to give to safe organizations, not those that deceive people. Don’t give to organizations that give to other organizations that kill babies.”
She said the U.S. government gave 366 million dollars of taxpayer money to Planned Parenthood “this year.”
Johnson referred to this quote from the Henry Hyde (1924-2007), a former U.S. House of Representatives statesman from the sixth district of Illinois:
“When the time comes, as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I’ve often thought, as Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God – and a terror will rip your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there’ll be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world – and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, ‘Spare him, because he loved us!’”
“You can be the ‘sign’ for these children,” Johnson said. “They are waiting to be spared of death.”
Life Care Pregnancy Center of Carthage, N.C., “a Christ-centered ministry that promotes the sanctity of human life,” may be reached at 910-947-6199 or by e-mail at lcpc01@embarqmail.com.
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
'Words Not Spoken' by Stewart Simms
Stewart Simms’ “Words Not Spoken” is a book about “understanding the pastor’s silent hurts.” Anyone interested in human relationships can profit from reading this volume.
“This book will help you understand yourself and others,” says the Rev. Ken Hemphill, a Southern Baptist (SBC) strategist who wrote the foreword for “Words Not Spoken” (Yorkshire Publishing). “Stewart writes honestly about matters such as loneliness, resentment, comparison, prayerlessness, sadness, disappointment and family failures.”
Stewart Simms, Jr. and I sang together in the Greer High School (in Greer, S.C.) Boys Octet. He and his late father, then pastor of the town’s First Baptist Church, sang a hymn duet, “Hold Thou My Hand,” at our GHS baccalaureate service, Sunday, May 30, 1965. The Rev. Edmond Poole, father of Joe Poole of our class and pastor of Victor Baptist Church in Greer, delivered that evening’s sermon. On Thursday, June 3, 1965, at 8:15 p.m., 254 members of our 1965 class, listed as “candidates for diplomas or certificates,” exited high school after a ceremony – which included the GHS band playing “Pomp and Circumstance” – held inside the GHS football stadium.
During his high school years, when friends asked if he would “follow in the footsteps of his pastor father,” Simms said, “Not the way I see it now.” He says he thought of other careers, especially commercial art, but nothing seemed to be a “must” in his life.
“During my freshman year in college [Furman University], I attended a revival service in my home church and had the opportunity to spend time with my father and the evangelist,” Simms says. “I took a deep breath and said, ‘Dad, I think God may be calling me into the ministry.’”
After a long silence, his father said, “Son, I have known that for a long time. I said nothing because I did not want to be the one who most influences you. That is up to the good Lord.”
“The moment I spoke, the direction of the desire of my life changed,” Simms says. “I went from not knowing what I wanted to do, to knowing there was nothing else I wanted to do, or could do. It was a sense of a ‘divine must’… Answering the ‘call’ does not mean that other vocations are unimportant, but for the one called, nothing else is as important.”
Simms says a sense of “must” should not be viewed as compulsion and that some people enter the ministry for unhealthy reasons, such as: the expectations of parents or grandparents; trying to atone for earlier sin and rebellion against God; the result of making a “deal” with God in a time of crisis; escape from another unpleasant career; and the feeling that this is the only way to please and appease God.
Simms earned degrees from Furman University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (M.Div. and D. Min.) in Fort Worth, Texas. He began preaching in 1966 and has served as a pastor since 1971. He is married to the former Diane Lucas; they have three children and one granddaughter. Simms spent the last 30 years as senior pastor of Beech Haven Baptist Church (BeechHaven.org) in Athens, Ga., and wrote columns for the church’s newsletter. On Oct. 16, 2011, he announced his retirement from that church.
“I am not leaving the ministry,” he says. “After a brief period of rest, I will preach as often as I am able.”
Yorkshire Publishing entices us to read “Words Not Spoken,” Simms’ first book, with these words: “Ministry can be the greatest blessing in life and the greatest source of frustration at the same time. It is a joy to serve God. However, things happen that wound a pastor deeply. Who does he tell? Who is the pastor's pastor? Sometimes because of embarrassment or fear he tells no one, which can lead to serious consequences. This book explores some of those unspoken hurts and offers suggestions of what to do. Pastors will know someone understands, and people can learn how to return ministry to their pastors.”
In a chapter called “The Unspoken Burden of the Ministry: Disappointment,” Simms says disappointment can cause a pastor to become resentful, cynical and withdrawn emotionally.
“Surveys of churches that have dismissed a minister reveal that the number one reason is a fundamental lack of relationship skills by the minister,” Simms says. “Some failings by ministers deserve action. But other struggles, like those spoken of here [in “Words Not Spoken”], should not be fatal to one’s ministry, and in fact, deserve understanding and caring. Members of churches can provide that care to their pastors, if they will. That will often require simple understanding. Where people provide for their ministers the healing and encouragement they need, churches can profit greatly. By learning to extend graciousness and caring and listening to their leaders, churches may decide to extend those same responses to people outside the church.”
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
IDOP International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church
By Steve Crain
November is the month to remember and pray for the persecuted church, through the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP).
Believers in Afghanistan face death threats; Christians in Uzbekistan, Nigeria and other countries face violence, imprisonment and even death. There are places such as North Korea where persecution takes place, but we don’t hear of it. Brother Andrew of Open Doors said, “Our heroes are not with us simply because they are in prison.”
IDOP is a time set apart to remember thousands of Christians who suffer persecution, simply because they confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Please note that Sunday, Nov. 13 (Sunday, Nov. 6 in the UK and Ireland) is the designated date for IDOP.
Here are excerpts from recent stories posted by Stacy L. Harp at www.persecutionblog.com:
Nov. 9: “Burmese soldiers targeted Christian civilians and church buildings in a recent attack against insurgents from the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). The military, which accused church leaders of being part of the KIO, reportedly burned church property and several homes.
“On Oct. 16, 2011, soldiers opened fire on a church in Bhamo District in Kachin state as the congregation prepared for Sunday service. No one was injured in the gunfire, but Burmese soldiers burned the property and detained five church leaders.
“Although the Christians denied being part of the KIO, soldiers kicked and hit them with their guns, demanding to know where the Christians stored guns and bombs. … The soldiers tied the Christian leaders’ hands with wire and forced them to carry heavy rucksacks … Before releasing the five men, the soldiers told them to tell the KIO that the army was preparing to attack their headquarters in Laiza. When the men returned to their village, they found their houses in flames.”
Nov. 8: “ARISSA, Kenya, November 7 (CDN) — Suspected Islamic extremists with Somalia’s al Shabaab militia threw a grenade into the home of the church guard of an East Africa Pentecostal Church (EAPC) congregation outside Garissa, Kenya on Saturday night (Nov. 5), killing an 8-year-old girl and another member of the church, sources said. Three other people were seriously injured in the 8 p.m. grenade attack on the house, which is near the gate of the church compound. Killed instantly were 8-year-old Winnie Mwenda Mutinda and 25-year-old church member John Kikavu. The child was the youngest daughter of church elder Patrick Mutinda, who also serves as the guard or watchman of the church building, sources said.”
The following Nov. 7-posted (by Harp) story is about Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who is receiving international attention:
“Both the Christian Broadcasting Network and The Jerusalem Post are carrying stories today about Pastor Youcef. Please keep him in your prayers, as he still remains in prison and awaiting a decision from, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“‘The Jerusalem Post’ is reporting that Pastor Youcef has been given a book to read titled ‘Message of the Two Eras’ and is again being asked to recant his faith in Jesus and turn to Islam. It was reported previously that Pastor Youcef was given this book and did not deny Christ.
“David Parsons, spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday the new development is ‘very troubling.’
“There need to be ‘three attempts to make him convert to Islam before they can kill him,’ Parsons said. He cited Shari’a Islamic law as the basis for the three attempts rule.
“Iran ‘is going through the motions’ and ‘trying to do it in a very public way for the Muslim world and maybe, in their mind, thinking they can placate the West. It is outrageous,’ said Parsons, a contributing editor to The Jerusalem Post Christian Edition. The case “should be an eye-opener for world leaders. They should know what Islam teaches in terms of ‘inferior religions’ like Judaism and Christianity.”
The “Message of the Two Eras” discusses the New and Old Testaments. “Through various narratives, the book claims Christianity is a fabrication and attempts to establish the superiority of Islam,” Harp writes.
Please pray. Jesus warned His disciples that in the last days before He comes again, “You will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me” (Matthew 24:9).
November is the month to remember and pray for the persecuted church, through the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church (IDOP).
Believers in Afghanistan face death threats; Christians in Uzbekistan, Nigeria and other countries face violence, imprisonment and even death. There are places such as North Korea where persecution takes place, but we don’t hear of it. Brother Andrew of Open Doors said, “Our heroes are not with us simply because they are in prison.”
IDOP is a time set apart to remember thousands of Christians who suffer persecution, simply because they confess Jesus Christ as Lord. Please note that Sunday, Nov. 13 (Sunday, Nov. 6 in the UK and Ireland) is the designated date for IDOP.
Here are excerpts from recent stories posted by Stacy L. Harp at www.persecutionblog.com:
Nov. 9: “Burmese soldiers targeted Christian civilians and church buildings in a recent attack against insurgents from the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO). The military, which accused church leaders of being part of the KIO, reportedly burned church property and several homes.
“On Oct. 16, 2011, soldiers opened fire on a church in Bhamo District in Kachin state as the congregation prepared for Sunday service. No one was injured in the gunfire, but Burmese soldiers burned the property and detained five church leaders.
“Although the Christians denied being part of the KIO, soldiers kicked and hit them with their guns, demanding to know where the Christians stored guns and bombs. … The soldiers tied the Christian leaders’ hands with wire and forced them to carry heavy rucksacks … Before releasing the five men, the soldiers told them to tell the KIO that the army was preparing to attack their headquarters in Laiza. When the men returned to their village, they found their houses in flames.”
Nov. 8: “ARISSA, Kenya, November 7 (CDN) — Suspected Islamic extremists with Somalia’s al Shabaab militia threw a grenade into the home of the church guard of an East Africa Pentecostal Church (EAPC) congregation outside Garissa, Kenya on Saturday night (Nov. 5), killing an 8-year-old girl and another member of the church, sources said. Three other people were seriously injured in the 8 p.m. grenade attack on the house, which is near the gate of the church compound. Killed instantly were 8-year-old Winnie Mwenda Mutinda and 25-year-old church member John Kikavu. The child was the youngest daughter of church elder Patrick Mutinda, who also serves as the guard or watchman of the church building, sources said.”
The following Nov. 7-posted (by Harp) story is about Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, who is receiving international attention:
“Both the Christian Broadcasting Network and The Jerusalem Post are carrying stories today about Pastor Youcef. Please keep him in your prayers, as he still remains in prison and awaiting a decision from, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“‘The Jerusalem Post’ is reporting that Pastor Youcef has been given a book to read titled ‘Message of the Two Eras’ and is again being asked to recant his faith in Jesus and turn to Islam. It was reported previously that Pastor Youcef was given this book and did not deny Christ.
“David Parsons, spokesman for the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday the new development is ‘very troubling.’
“There need to be ‘three attempts to make him convert to Islam before they can kill him,’ Parsons said. He cited Shari’a Islamic law as the basis for the three attempts rule.
“Iran ‘is going through the motions’ and ‘trying to do it in a very public way for the Muslim world and maybe, in their mind, thinking they can placate the West. It is outrageous,’ said Parsons, a contributing editor to The Jerusalem Post Christian Edition. The case “should be an eye-opener for world leaders. They should know what Islam teaches in terms of ‘inferior religions’ like Judaism and Christianity.”
The “Message of the Two Eras” discusses the New and Old Testaments. “Through various narratives, the book claims Christianity is a fabrication and attempts to establish the superiority of Islam,” Harp writes.
Please pray. Jesus warned His disciples that in the last days before He comes again, “You will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me” (Matthew 24:9).
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