Written by Van Yandell
2 Timothy 1: 7 “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.”
In times past, a saying we often heard was, “When at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Failure was simply accepted as a step in reaching success. Thomas Edison made over one thousand attempts to make an incandescent light bulb before he made the one that worked.
Failure is usually not considered to be good. But, can it be a good thing? Failure at times may bring out the best in us and our most aggressive effort. Failure must be turned into a learning experience.
NASA has had, from the beginning of the space program, an abort switch in space crafts. If there was a catastrophic failure in the rockets or other components, the astronauts could abort the mission with a good chance of survival.
Engineers build safety systems into many mechanical devices. Sometimes these are called redundant systems and that essentially means a secondary system if the first system fails. A redundant system is a back-up system for the recovery of the process. Regardless of what example we may use to make the point, failure happens.
A recent ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States reversed the Roe versus Wade decision of 1973. Basically the court returned the right to make the decisions on fetal abortion a state decision and not a nationally mandated ruling.
The term “abort” in itself and in its reality denotes a catastrophic state of failure; the process has begun but failed. Good or bad, right or wrong, failure happened.
A characteristic of humanity seems to be that we address areas concerning failure after the fact other than the real reason for the failure and taking steps to prevent the failure. The old “ostrich burying his head in the sand” practice is alive and well in the world today.
We stand around with our hands in our pockets, allow the failure to transpire, then try to repair the damage. Shouldn’t this sequence be reversed? Would it not be logical to foresee some of the problems and correct the causes? The determination addressing right from wrong has already been made and bypassed.
The initial problem has once again been ignored and society moves on to correct the problem once it is ongoing. The old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is certainly appropriate in this case and could have preempted this disastrous condition that is so dividing humanity today.
Fetal abortion is a religious factor only in the mind of a religious person. The proponents of abortion do not care about one’s religious beliefs; thus the playing field is on a slippery slope rather than on a level plane.
Regardless of one’s point-of-view, to abort is about catastrophic failure; somewhere! To address the point of failure is difficult to categorize or prioritize because of varying attitudes and beliefs.
The arguments have all been made on the part of the pros and the cons. Arguing abortion right or wrong is as if the debate is happening in two languages. Neither understands the other point-of-view. One is from the position of women’s rights and the other is from a religious belief.
The reasons for our societal breakdown are numerous. To begin a listing would be counterproductive and worthless. The important point is for all to realize, we have a problem and it goes well beyond the Roe v Wade ruling by the Supreme Court and has for over 50 years.
America was founded upon Christian principles, and has been viewed as a Christian nation. Many no longer see it in that light. It was founded upon freedom and one of those freedoms was religion. The original concept of freedom of religion was based on the religion of Christianity. Christianity was not initiated in America as a state religion but it was the founding religion. People of all walks of life, nationalities and religions were welcome.
Most religions teach high moral character. The values of right and wrong seem to be consistent, many of which are stated in the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20).
It seems in America today as if standards of right and wrong are fading (Isaiah 5: 20 “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil”). Many appear to be thriving on permissiveness. The question at this point is how to return to a state of civility and regain the values brought here by Christian immigrants just a few hundred years ago.
Many decisions are being made in a moral vacuum and this is not in the best interest of anyone.
Another question of interest may make us wonder why Christians have failed to hold this society to higher standards. The percentage of the American population professing Christianity has proportionately decreased over the last fifty years (since Roe vs. Wade). The number of Americans now claiming to be Christian is less than sixty percent and many of those are seen as Christians “on paper” only.
An article recently started was, “Is your outreach reaching out?” After the previous statements I may as well delete that entire article because to drop the bottom line of that article, the answer is “No, it is not!” If it were, the church attendance and numbers of Christians would not be constantly dropping in America.
Yes, to abort means catastrophic failure. And the absolute fact is, we have failed to teach people about the teachings of Jesus and that He was willing to go to the cross and suffer and die for the sins of mankind. If people do not know about Him, they are not going to study the Bible; they will not go to church or associate with other Christians, and know which behaviors are acceptable and which are not.
If people are not familiar with God’s rule book, how can they be expected to know that killing babies is wrong? Permissiveness may be popular but it’s wrong! An applicable scripture here may be Proverbs 12: 15 “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes”
I have talked to people in many places; and in many cases, when they hear about the faith based belief in Christ Jesus crucified for the remission of sin and resurrected, they receive the belief with open arms. People respond to the love of Jesus much more readily than they do to eternal punishment.
But someone has to tell them! It is the church and Christians that have failed this society by not working the Great Commission.
This world is home to many “ifs” an ‘what ifs” but if we don’t work as a church and a people to teach others about Jesus, we’re going to lose this great country to the disciples of evil. We’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.
To abort means catastrophic failure and the failure is partly ours. What are we going to do about it?
Acts 1: 8 “And ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”
Failure must never mean quitting! We are to press on. Philippians 3:14 “I press on toward the goal to the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”