Archive for August, 2009
No, Do Not Be Surprised
Posted by Ernie Klassek in MessageWeek on August 13th, 2009
NO, DO NOT BE SURPRISED – the time is coming when all those who are dead and buried will hear His voice and out they will come – those who have done right will rise again to life, but those who have done wrong will rise to face judgment!
That is how J. B. Phillips rendered some words of Jesus in St. John’s gospel.1
St. John described a similar scenario of people coming back to life in another book: “Then the sea gave up its dead. Death and the world of the dead also gave up the dead they held. And all were judged according to what they had done.”2
All.
When we read that word we think of every human being, past, present and future; our ancestors, people here and now and those yet to come. But is that “all”? Are human beings only those who are like us, folks we can see, touch and interact with? What about those many of us only hear about, or are vaguely aware of. The little ones who die before they are born. Should they be included in “all”?
In my grandmother’s time, a pregnant woman carried her child under her heart. Yes, that’s how she described her unborn baby. And I believed my grandmother, and I still do.
In the meantime – not all that long ago as history goes – some fellows had come along and told pregnant women that what they had in their wombs was either an embryo or a foetus, depending on what stage of development it was in. Embryo is Greek for “something that swells inside”, and foetus can be traced to the Latin verb feurere, which means “to bring forth”; so it’s “something that is about to be brought forth”, if you like. Almost looks as if they had come up with some Latin and some Greek to get away from the words “baby” and “child”.
You won’t find words like embryo or foetus in the Bible, because worldly fellows didn’t write it. Men who were inspired by God did. And God made people with the ability to multiply, and I believe Him – just as my grandmother did.
St. Luke was a doctor3, and he also wrote what we now call the third gospel. By way of introduction he tells us that he had studied the reports of others and thought it would be good to write an orderly account, and that the full truth about everything would be known.4 Who could be better qualified than a doctor like St. Luke to tell us about pregnancies and babies. First he reported the case of an old lady called Elizabeth becoming pregnant. She was a priest’s wife, and she had been barren, but God wanted her to have a son to serve Him in a unique way, on a special assignment we would say nowadays.
Then we read what happened when Mary, a young woman – who would be the mother of Jesus – visited Elizabeth: the six months old baby in Elizabeth’s womb jumped for joy.5 Yes, the Greek text has the word for “baby”, and ancient as well as modern translators have rendered it as “infant”, “baby” or “child”.
Many pregnant women throughout the ages have told of similar experiences, and many a mother will readily tell us about the capers of the child she carries in her womb. Some of our five children were more lively than the others. Domna and I somehow seemed to know what they might be like long before they were born. Talk about personalities! They were real people already, and we had not had a chance to set eyes on them.
Right from the moment of conception, a baby’s influence on its mother can become evident, some sooner, some later, but it’s there. I always knew when Domna was pregnant. She would do things that she normally wouldn’t do, such as eat raw vegetables straight from her garden.
Come to think of it, we didn’t need a doctor to tell us. Those are all part and parcel of a happy family life.
Then, living in the world we live in, there are the sad moments. An unborn child dies.
What we think at times like that may be less important than what God might think. What if God includes children that die before birth in the number of people to be resurrected, or, as J.B. Phillips put it, will rise again to life?
Look at that sentence again at the beginning of this article: it mentions those who have done right and those who have done wrong. Surely, unborn babies have done neither,6 (SEE FOOTNOTE) just like those who are born – and we call them innocent, don’t we.
Imagine the multiple millions of mums and dads coming up in their resurrection, parents who had lost children before they had a chance to be born. Imagine a loving, caring and merciful God raising back to life those lost children, popping them into the laps of their mums and dads and saying to them: here is your chance to love them and to rear them up.
Neither the parents nor the children had seen justice in this life. At the resurrection they will rise to face judgment. At that time they will know and experience justice, because Jesus is the judge. And you couldn’t get a more compassionate judge than Him.
Impossible?
The Bible is the book that tells us about the resurrection of the dead. It also contains a verse that records Jesus as saying: “With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”7
All things.
And if someone is still in doubt: as I have said to many an atheist, just wait and see.
Better still, as J.B. Phillips worded it: no, do not be surprised!
Ernie Klassek
___________________
FOOTNOTES:
1. John 5:28-29 (p.211), The Gospels In Modern English
2. Revelation 20:13, Good News Bible
3. Colossians 4:14, Good News Bible
4. Luke 1:1-4, Good News Bible
5. Luke 1:5-45
6. Romans 9:11
7. Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27, New International Version
EMBRYOLOGY (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
17th – 18th century: descriptive and comparative studies.
19th century: analytical and experimental approach.
Wilhelm Roux (1850 – 1924): first to envisage the scope of analytical embryology. Pioneer studies on frog eggs in 1885.
Hans Spemann: Nobel prize in 1935 for his discovery of embryonic induction
Can We Turn Around?
Posted by John Klassek in MessageWeek on August 13th, 2009
This is because, it’s a nasty piece of business; it’s one, however, that affects the very heart and core of who and what we are, and it’s something we’re going to be held accountable for.
Hello and welcome to MessageWeek – sharing those words of hope that we all need to hear.
What we’re talking about are the millions and millions of ordinary people like you and me who have been exterminated in recent decades – not to speak of the potential doctors, lawyers, athletes, scientists, artists and musicians who may have been among them – people who never really got a chance at life. Let me explain.
I know how protective we are of our children: for example, paedophiles are adequately dealt with by our criminal justice systems, let alone the adverse media coverage it creates. We’re rightly incensed when we hear of Islamic clerics deluding their youth into becoming suicide bombers. And we’re equally horrified when archeologists find the mummified remains of a fourteen year old Inca girl apparently killed in a ritual sacrifice on a mountain top.
But, did you know that our society today is just as culpable? We call it… abortion, terminating the lives of those who are most vulnerable, those who should instead be the recipients of our greatest care, love and protection. Unfortunately, our society hides behind fallacious legal interpretations and arguments by lawyers and ethicists as to what determines human “life”.
Our school textbooks endorse labels them such as embryos and fetuses – when they should be called for who they are: babies, our own sons and daughters.
Is not this the evolutionary model applied in the worst sense of the phrase: “the survival of the fittest”?
You see, for many years now we’ve taught our children that there is no creator, that there is no God. We’ve proffered them instead the evolutionary model, which is a lying delusion that hides our real identity as the very children of God. We did not just evolve into existence. That’s a lie, a big furphy!
We are created, instead, in God’s image and likeness – to be His children forever. That’s the indisputable truth. It’s not a relative truth. It’s not folklore – God is, and we had better listen to Him.
But, if you take God out of our lives and out of the picture, how easy it is to carelessly believe that those infants are dispensable – and in the worst kind of way.
I’m glad God that is good, and His judgements just, because if, according to the scriptures, we’re going to be held accountable for “every idle word” that we may speak, what’s then the judgement going to be for what we’ve done to millions of our murdered children?
Are we not collectively guilty of the most grievous of crimes? Is there any hope? Is there anything we can still do? Yes, there is.
Turn and repent, says God. He says: “Turn from our sinful ways”, else, in the words of the prophets, utter destruction awaits.
History is a good precedent for the consequences we might expect, when “wickedness” reaches a saturation point that no-one can ignore. Whenever a civilisation’s morals decline, its demise isn’t far off. It’s happened time and time again.
Thankfully, for the sake of those who are faithful to Him, God does intervene. It happened in the days of Noah, and again in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, where God’s judgement was given to a violent and wicked generation.
Jesus told his disciples that the time prior to His return would not be unlike “the days of Noah” – where after 120 years of warning and witness, and no one listened, God finally passed sentence.
The good news is that God alone has the power over life and death. We don’t. Those children were never ours to begin with, they were simply on loan. Thankfully, Jesus says that one day all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out – to stand and tp live again. He can say that on full authority because he paid a terrible price in His own life to account for our sins, our “debts”.
There is a day of resurrection, and there is a day of reckoning. There is hope, hope in turning around, in confessing our sin, individually and collectively.
Can I ask: Are we up to the task?
For the MessageWeek team, I’m John Klassek.
Remember, there is no shame in turning around, no dishonour in repenting. We can’t bring back those children, but we can turn back to God – and find forgiveness, healing and hope.
abortion, babies, change, children, evolution, forgiveness, repent, youth
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