First Baptist Church
545 South Main
Jellico, Tennessee. 37762
Pastor: Michael Blankenship
Web Address: www.jfb.faithsite.com/default.asp
Sunday Morning 1-21-2001
Sanctity of Human Life Sunday.
As we swore in a new president yesterday, amidst the fanfare and rejoicing by many conservative minds, I found myself still wrestling with the same quandary; When will American return to God? From 11:00 am yesterday until 11:00 am today, approximately 4,320 unborn infants were aborted. This number is staggering when viewed on the broader scale of things to come. 4,320 potential voter, citizens of the United States, teachers, doctors. Lawyers and fellow children of God were annihilated from the face of the earth. 4,320 enough to incorporate and fill a small town in the most desolate of areas in the Untied States of America.
Let us look to the word of God and head His voice before the ominous future comes to fruition.
Deuteronomy 32:28-35
America: Where are we Today, Tomorrow, and Yesterday?
1. The Deterioration of Our Moral Foundation Yesterday 28-31
Let us begin in another part of the world similar to our own. It is a nation that has become great that has become scholarly, that has made a sound contribution to the worldly affairs of men. Pre- War Germany asses much of what we see taking place in America today. In order to understand the full implication of things that were we must first visit the relics that remain, and remind us of the future of a nation devoid of God. Go with me if you would to Berlin, Germany, we shall drive 35 kilometers Northeasterly into the countryside through the winding roads and well-landscaped yards of centuries of laborious living. We will stop in the town of Oranienburg a small town that might look as any small town across America today. A town where one might have felt very comfortable raising a family, and living out their lives. There were a few country stores and restaurants but this town is a village by definition. This same town with its outward charm might have remained obscure were it not for Heinrich Himmler
and his choosing of this town for the first prototype of the concentration camps.
The first camp was called ¡§Sachsenhauser¡¨, its name in English means home of the Saxons. The Barracks here held hundreds of thousands of human prisoners. Let us walk with open eyes as we observe the sights of the past.
Here to our right are bales of human hair baled and confined as a reminder of all those who died here. Piles of children¡¦s shoes that are of various sizes and type their owners will never return to retrieve these trinkets of life. Let us hurriedly pass the abandoned laboratories where experiments, and abortions were performed without Anastasia, because the people whether, Jew or polish, or Checque were not human, because they spoke a language that was foreign, because their customs were different, or because the pigment of their skin was different. Walk onward with me, as we go the back of the camps, where the ovens that incinerate the dead burn both day and night. Notice here we see the statue of iron of two skeletal and ominous figures that carry the lifeless bodies toward the furnaces.
B. The ovens and the buildings have long since collapsed.
1. The undermining of the foundations eroded the stability of the structures until they ultimately collapsed under their own weight. We as people of God must take note of the over whelming stench of death that hangs in the air of Sachsenausen, and through all of pre-war Germany.
2. Why? Because of the parallel potential that we may repeat the past here now, or in the future. In 1934 Adolph Hitler, had been chancellor for just over a year. On July 20, 1934 he implemented a policy pronounced, ¡§Glite-shaff-coon¡¨ this policy was part of ¡§article 24 which allowed for all religious denominations in the state so far as they are not a danger to the moral feelings of the German race. This was part of the facade of separation of church and state. Many of the churches realizing the ploy attempted to reorganize. There were 150,000 Protestants out of forty-five million in pre-war Germany who belonged to the ¡§free¡¨ churches such as Baptist, and Methodist . The rest of the Protestant faiths were separated among twenty-eight other denominations, the largest of which was the Old Prussian Union with eighteen million members. The churches balked at Hitler¡¦s proposal and re-alignment, the stood perched and ready to dethrone the Leader before he could go any further. Hitler, sensing the potential problem called all of the religious leaders together, he would appeal to the materialism, if not their greed. He began by reaffirming their tax-exempt status, and government subsides, and quietly he eased them into his hand.
One man Martin Niemollar, who had heard enough political innuendoes, and material promises, spoke out, ¡§Heir Hitler¡¨ he asked, ¡§Jesus Christ will take care of His Church, but we are concerned with the soul of the nation.¡¨ Hitler, it is said spoke almost reflectively his eyes growing, his hand reaching to stroke his chin as he replied, ¡§the soul of Germany you can leave to me.¡¨ And they did. On July 1, 1937 Dr. Martin Niemoeller was arrested and confined to Moabit prison in Berlin. They had looked the other way when the cattle cars carried human beings to their deaths, and now Niemoeller was in the same situation. He had spoken out days before his arrest when in his pulpit he proclaimed Gods, truth saying, ¡§No more are we ready to keep silent at man¡¦s behest when God commands us to speak. For it is and must remain, the case that we must obey God, rather than man. ¡¨ He was fined two thousand marks, taken into custody by the Gestapo and kept in concentration camps at Sachesenhausen, and Dachau over the next seven years, until liberated by Allied troops. 807 Pastors were arrested over the next few years, however the remaining thousands, all submitted quietly to Hitler¡¦s reign.
II. The Condition of our Present Situation (vs.35-37)
A. We are living in an Era that allows the destruction of one innocent child every twenty seconds. We stand by as the slaughter continues, we turn our heads we do not want to protest for fear of what may happen to a our material possessions. The rate of slaughter of the inborn makes Adolph Hitler seem as if he is a humanitarian by comparison.
B. How much is at Stake in America? How much do we really stand to loose? How important are the issues that affect the soul of our nation?
We must not be like the Christians of Germany who found out far to late that the people of God cannot disengage themselves from the world in which they live. Jesus Has called us the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13).
We cannot resign ourselves to set comfortably in our ornate sanctuaries sleeping while Satan walks about seeking to destroy our children, and friends. We cannot continue to set upon our padded pews while our backsides sleep, sin rages and destroys lives around us. We cannot continue to be a Chameleon church, blending in and not setting ourselves apart while the world around us methodically marches toward hell.
C. What is your life worth today? Biologist tell us that the basic chemical ingredients that compose your metabolic make up cost about twenty dollars at the local drug or hardware store. What is your life worth? What is anything worth? What someone else is willing to pay for it of course? God speaks to Jeremiah in Jeremiah 1:5 ¡§ I knew you before you were born. I concentrated you, I have appointed you a prophet to all nations.¡¨
In Genesis 1:26, ¡§ Let us make man in our image according to our likeness.¡¨
„h We are made in the image of God, we are valuable because we are of His workmanship. No one else can create another like you, you are singular and unique.
„h If the womb of an expectant mother were equipped with a small window, do you suppose that an unborn child would still be considered an inanimate object? By nine week the fetus can hiccup and react to loud noises. It can distinguish the voice of its mother verses a stranger
„h Today¡¦s church cannot continue to bend, blend, or go quietly into the night. We cannot continue to compromise and yield our convictions and beliefs. We must abstain from following the current trends of public opinion, and stand firm for almighty God.
„h We must strive to be like Joshua when he says. ¡§ as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.¡¨ Joshua 24:15
„h A Noble Frenchman came to America to see what makes her great.
He writes, ¡§I sought the key to the greatness of America in her fields, in her ports, and in her cities. I sat in her courts, listened to her politics, but it was not until I went into her churches, and encountered the living God, and His judgement, that is what makes America great.
¡§My people parish for a lack of knowledge¡¨
Where are you today for God, will you commit your life to Him?
Will you pray for America today?
Will you ask God for a renewal of your sense of urgency to reach the lost at any cost?
Jesus died to show his love for us would you come and trust Him today?
