Monday PrayerCast July 4th, 2022
News and Prayer Update.
Good morning! It’s 8am on Monday morning the 4th July 2022 – American Independence Day and this episode has a USA focus, for our UK listeners. Now, please remember that all the items discussed in this podcast are already in the public realm, and usually the references for them are found in the main stream media. Now this episode is a little different, for we only have one topic, a decision made in an American dicourt. But I thought it right to dwell on this, for it is such a significant event, and an event that we pray will influence the course of history all over the world.…
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT PARTS OF THE PODCAST MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN.
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Roe V Wade, that monstrous decision by the Supreme Court of the USA, back in 1973, has been struck down in a sitting of that court on Friday 24th June 2022. We are reminded of Proverbs 24:11-12 Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?
The original decision of the court, back in 1973, had made abortion a legal right in all 50 states of the USA and that decision relied on a liberal interpretation of the US Constitution. The issue is, essentially, whether the US Constitution is to be interpreted literally, as written, or can it be subjectively interpreted, not literally, but speculating on what the founding fathers would have thought about modern day legal issues. There is no legal right to abortion in the US Constitution, but could another constitutional right be extended to imply a right to murder an unborn baby?
A woman now known to be Norma McCorvey, then referred to simply as Jane Roe, aged 21 and pregnant for the third time, wanted an abortion. In Texas, where she lived, abortion was restricted to cases where the mother’s health was at risk. Like Sarah Ewart, here in NI, she was the perfect front person for a pro-abortion legal case. Her lawyers, who were pro-abortion advocates, argued at the Texas District Court that the law in Texas violated a woman’s right to privacy. The court agreed, but declined to strike down the state’s abortion laws. The case went to the Supreme Court. There, the lawyers argued that abortion was a constitutional issue, demonstrating the constitutional right of all Americans to determine the path of their own lives. Jane Roe remained anonymous throughout the hearings, and the Supreme Court, with only seven judges sitting at that time found in her favour, in a four-three decision. Abortion was declared a legal right in all states.
That decision changed attitudes to abortion across the world, as well as across the USA. The mantra that was used at the time by politicians and abortion advocates was that abortion would be rare, safe, and legal. Of course, as we now know it was nothing of the kind. In the USA alone 63.5 million preborn children have been aborted since Roe, – that’s not rare, by any definition of the word. It’s not safe either, – how can it be, when the objective and result is the death of a human being, and in the case of a second trimester abortion, a horrendous, gruesome death of the worst possible kind. Neither is it safe for the mother, either medically or mentally. Exodus 21:22-25 “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
In a shocking revelation to the US Congress in 2015, a gynaecologist, Dr. Anthony Levatino of New Mexico who had performed hundreds of abortions in the 1980s described the process by which a second trimester pregnancy is terminated. It makes for harrowing listening. In graphic detail, Levatino described the process of a Suction D&E procedure, which involves using a sopher clamp to rip the limbs off an unborn baby.
Responding to a question the doctor added, “If I abused a dog (like that) in my town, I’d be arrested. If I did abortions again, first trimester, second trimester, I’d be a hero.”
Audio clip from https://ukcolumn.org
Now it seems, abortion after Roe V Wade was not only frequent and unsafe, but it was not even a legal right. That decision of 24th June 2022 was momentous, in that Justice Alito, writing the majority opinion of the court, wrote, “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division. It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
That phrase, “Heed the constitution” is highly significant. It heralds a return to a more literal application of the US Constitution, and it will have massive ramifications. The Court is not the assembly of the people, and laws should be made in a nation’s parliament, not by judicial reviews. A court’s job is to apply laws, not to make them. So, just how profound could this decision be? The right to same-sex marriage in the US was not established by congress, the elected assembly, but by the Supreme Court – in the so-called “Obergefell Decision.” Justice Alito wrote, “Finally, the dissent suggests that our decision calls into question Griswold, Eisenstadt, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”
If same-sex marriage is the next manufactured ‘right’ to fall in the USA, that may, like the Supreme Court’s decision on June 24th, have world-wide consequences.
Now, let’s be honest. The overturn of Roe V Wade won’t stop abortion in the USA or anywhere else. It simply declares that legislation on this issue is for the people to decide, through their elected representatives, and in the USA, that’s the US Congress and state parliaments. Some states have already begun to remove the right to abortion from their statute books, others have not. In response some commercial companies, like Disney for example, have offered to pay the travelling expenses of employees who want to travel to another state for their abortion procedure. But abortion clinics will close, and that must be a good thing. Perhaps the safest place for an unborn baby in the western world at present is the state of Alabama or Florida. Internationally, abortion activists will be looking to this decision with unease. The website, public discourse. com explained that the on-going strategy of abortion rights groups has been a legal one, “The strategy of abortion-rights groups is to capture UN agencies and the UN human rights machinery, get them to recommend the legalisation of abortion internationally, and thereby allow abortion lobbyists to claim in national courts that a customary, international human right to abortion has emerged. Countries will then legalise abortion and claim they were bound by international law to do so.” That strategy is now in pieces.
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Of course the liberal backlash to the Supreme Court’s decision was expected. Liberals are anything but tolerant. In the days leading up to the decision there had been a leak, and the court’s final decision had been predicted, and the reprisals started even then. Death threats had been issued against the more conservative judges. After the decision, riots and protests occurred not only in America but all over the world, some protestors burning American flags. The liberal New York Times, typically, reported, “Outside the Supreme Court, a divided crowd that had begun gathering early in the day had swelled to thousands of mostly outraged abortion rights demonstrators by evening, clashing with small groups of joyful anti-abortion activists who blew bubbles and celebrated the end of the federal guarantee of access to a safe and legal means of ending a pregnancy.” Observe the loaded language in that last statement.
In one truly disgusting social media post, women were seen protesting outside the court, with red dye, depicting blood, oozing between their legs, and holding between their legs naked baby dolls, pretending that they had been aborted. Politicians joined in too, with Pres. Macron of France tweeting, “Abortion is a fundamental right for all women. It must be protected, I wish to express my solidarity with the women whose liberties are being undermined by the Supreme Court of the United States.” This despite the fact that France bans elective abortion at 12 weeks, three weeks earlier than a Mississippi law that the US Supreme Court had upheld and that France’s abortion restrictions would even not be allowed under Roe. In Canada, PM Justin Trudeau called the decision, a “devastating setback for women.” He commented, “The judgment coming out of the United States is an attack on women’s freedom and quite frankly, it’s an attack on everyone’s freedoms and rights.” In the UK, the Metro Newspaper reported, “The prime minister has described today’s landmark ruling in the US ending guaranteed abortion provision in all states as a ‘big step backwards’. ‘I have always believed in a woman’s right to choose and I stick to that view, that’s why the UK has the laws that it does.’ He said the government here ‘recently took steps’ to ensure abortion provision was enforced throughout the UK, including in Northern Ireland which historically has had restrictive laws.”
Even the Duke and Duchess of Netflix joined in. Breitbart reported that Meghan Markle, wife of Prince Harry, is rallying left-wing, pro-abortion activists to join her in condemning the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Describing her runaway royal husband as a ‘feminist’ she said ‘the reaction to the ruling in her own house was “guttural,” with the “feminist” Prince Harry equally despairing, she then added it is essential for changes to be “pushed through.”
Well, there you are, the liberal, WEF-puppets of the western world all speaking with one voice on the murder of defenceless, unborn children. Here’s what the Bible says…
Deuteronomy 27:25 “‘Cursed be anyone who takes a bribe to shed innocent blood.’
Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Deuteronomy 30:19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,
As Christians we don’t depend on the judgements of men, we trust in Christ, but we rejoice greatly in God’s goodness, at this small but highly significant victory in America’s legal system.
Links to all these stories are available so you can read and research them for yourself. Follow the weblink in the episode notes to www dot Semper hyphen Reformata dot com to learn more.
Today we have Bible readings
Psalm 139:13-16 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Matthew 18:14 So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
Proverbs 6:16-19 There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
Let’s pray…
Lord, we remember before you today those women who are so engaged in the sexual agendas of the modern age and so sold over to sin and the devil, that they want to have sexual relationships without regard to the consequences, and who are murdering their unborn children, sacrificing them to the false god of carnal desire and convenience. Bring them to repentance and to saving faith in Christ. Strike the conscience of those doctors and nurses who kill babies, and bring them to a state of fear of their eternal punishment, and let them neither rest nor sleep until they repent. Protect the unborn we pray, and motivate Christians to rise up and fight for their survival. We thank you for this legal victory in the US Court, and we ask that it will be reflected in judicial decisions around the world, and even here, in our own countries.
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That’s all for now! Our final catechism class of the season is tomorrow – Tuesday at 1pm, and there should be a sermon podcast on Saturday. Catechism lessons resume in September, and there’ll be some bonus episodes, including some church history, during the summer.
Join us for worship, if you are free, each Lord’s Day morning at Ballymacashon Church, 78 Saintfield Road, Killinchy, Co.Down, at 11.30am.
Don’t be discouraged, – let’s redeem the time, and keep praying, keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus, for greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world…
The Salty Scrivener 