Sunday, September 30, 2012

UNLAWFUL PREMEDITATED KILLING



Murder is defined as the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another (Google) or the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought. (Merriam-Webster) By either definition it is planned and carried out by one human being taking the life of another intentionally. Irregardless of what laws man makes, the laws of man will never supersede or trump the laws of God, men may suppress this in there unrighteousness or selfish evil intents but every person has the laws of God written on their hearts. The sixth commandment says “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13) and all nations (all people groups) know this in their hearts, even though they suppress this in their unrighteousness. The country that I live in has legalized murder, the murder of children in the womb. This was legalized by a decision of the U.S. Supreme court on January 22, 1973 on a case of, Jane Roe vs. Henry Wade. (Wikipedia) Since that decision there have been over 53 million lives taken through what is called ‘Doctor assisted abortion’. (180movie.com) There are instances for whatever reason that a baby does not make it to term and dies while still in the womb, the natural process is for the women’s body to abort the remains of the life that had ended, this is a horrific tragedy to any expectant couple. I have held the hands of friends who lost there unborn babies in this way and they are crushed. A ‘Doctor assisted abortion’ is much different. In a ‘Doctor assisted abortion the baby in the womb is alive and through many different techniques that I don’t want to even go into, the life of the baby is taken and then the remains are removed. Think about that for a minute, on one hand you have a women who wants to have a child and the child dies in her womb and her body expels the remains, and on the other hand you have a woman with a live baby who doesn’t want it so she has a doctor kill it and forcibly remove it from her body. The woman who wanted her child knew that the child in her womb was at one time a living person and that is why she grieves. The woman who has her child killed by a doctor and forcibly removed does so with the knowledge that the baby in her womb is a living person but suppresses that knowledge in her selfish unrighteousness and the doctor and nurses that perform the act do so with full knowledge that the baby in the womb is a living person but suppress it in there unrighteousness of greed for money. Regardless of what the U.S. Supreme court says it is murder, it is one human being taking the life of another human being with malice aforethought.

Why am I writing this? The reason I am writing this is because in the United States of America is in an election year. While I am not interested in politics or the wrangling there of, in fact I most often do not watch the news because of this and especially the 24 hour news networks of FOX NEWS, CNN, MSNBC, etc. But I have friends that do, I have made mention of my concerns for the two men running for President of this country and I have made mention that I will not vote for either, so I am writing this as an explanation for this decision. As I have made it know in the previous paragraph, assisted abortion is murder and I will not support it in any form. The Democratic Party in their 2012 platform has stated that they; “Strongly support Roe Vs Wade and all assisted abortions regardless of ability to pay”, in another words if you can’t afford to have your baby killed they will pay for it for you. They would actually take money from you and me to pay a doctor to kill someone else’s child. That is deplorable! As long as that is the Platform of the Democratic Party I cannot nor will not vote for a Democrat running for any office. If you are a Democrat and running for office and disagree with your parties platform my suggestion is to leave that party.

The Republican Party in their 2012 platform has called for a ban on all ‘assisted abortions’ by constitutional amendment. It seems crazy that you would have to make and amendment to stop the murder of children but that is the way it is in the city of man. I do applaud this platform, but while I applaud this platform the Republican Party has elected as their Presidential candidate a man who is in support of ‘assisted abortion’. How you say? While running for U.S. senate in Massachusetts, he backed abortion rights. Since running for President he has changed his position to saying that he is against abortion except in cases of rape, incest and where the life of the mother is threatened. Basically, his position has not changed, just his wording and regardless of the wording the intentional premeditated killing of a child is murder. (source, Huffington Post)

Now I ask you, how does rape or incest justify the murder of a child? When making the decision to end a life the question shouldn’t be how that life came into being, the question should be is it a human being or is it not and if it is a human being or even if you are not sure there is no justification for killing the child. We have in this country a law called capital punishment; it is set aside for the most heinous of criminals. So are you telling me, in the case of rape or incest you are going to do to the unborn child what is restricted for only the most heinous criminals in our country? Are you going to punish the child with the death penalty for the crime of the father?

Now let’s look at the threat to the life of the mother. I am a Registered Nurse and have worked with critically ill Cardiac patients for many years and while doing so I have had pregnant women as patients. While I cannot go into detail or talk about any of these patients, all of them have a commonality. In each case in no way was the mother at risk because of her child, in fact in every case it was the child who was at risk because of the mother’s health. And in every case great measures were taken to assure the health of the child, with numerous health professionals becoming involved at beck and call at any moment to assure the life of the child. Now explain to me how if all of these people are willing to be involved to assure the life of these unborn children, how does the child suddenly become worthless if she doesn’t want him or her? Let’s say you witness a car accident and one of the cars goes over the side rail into the lake. You pull over get out of your car jump into the lake and swim to the sinking car, in the car is a mother and her child. You are able to get one door open and the one closest to you is the mother and you only are able to rescue one so you hall her out of the car to safety, then watch in sadness as the car sinks containing her child. You were only able to save the mother now tell me how ridiculous would it have been for you to have killed the child before saving the mother, but that is exactly what the proponents of abortion in case of threat to the life of the mother are doing.

Now I realize the Democratic Party has been taken over by the morally corrupt of the land. As their Party platform is in favor of abortion, homosexual marriage, removed the mention of God in their platform and regularly call good evil and evil good. The candidate and current President while though I respect his office and would not say anything ill of him as many do in political wrangling, he is in full support of his parties’ platform so thus he will not get my vote on Election Day. Now while the Republican Party is for a total ban on abortion they have elected as their Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney who is for abortion in rape, incest and where the life of the mother is threatened. While I know and understand that there are many issues at hand in this election and the candidates are vastly different on many topics I cannot nor will not vote in support of anyone who is for abortion in any since of the word, so Mitt Romney will not get my vote either. So what will I be doing on Election Day? I will trust the creator, sustainer, and redeemer of life, The Lord Jesus Christ.

For anyone who has read this I encourage you to go to 180movie.com and watch a 33 minute documentary that will rock your world.


Mike Peek a slave of Jesus Christ

Sunday, September 9, 2012

Faith Is Not Meant to be Private


Our faith is not meant to be private and from the start our faith is and always has been meant to be displayed publically. I hear people say often that my faith is between me and God and while that is true in origin, once you are given faith in the Son of God Jesus Christ the manifestation of our faith is public and meant to be so. I have heard some quote Matthew 6:5 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.” This is not about keeping our faith quietly but it is about doing things before men just to be seen by men so that they think you are pious. Our confession of Jesus Christ before men is not to bring glory to ourselves but it is to bring glory to the living God. My favorite and I believe to be the most important passage in scripture is Romans 3:23-26. A portion of that passage says; “Christ Jesus; Whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed.” Propitiation means a great deal but a quick definition is a merciful sacrifice. Now this merciful sacrifice was displayed publically in two parts, in the blood of Jesus Christ through faith. Both the sacrificial death of Christ was public and the faith of the elect (those whom God is saving) is public and God did this to demonstrate His righteousness. Jesus said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” (Mark 16:15)

I have grown to consider myself to be an evangelist all though very small, and all believers should, for that is the commission the Lord gave us all before ascending to the right hand of the Father in Heaven. As I have become experienced in sharing my faith I have come to realize that there are three different ways I do this, with some blending at times between the three.

1. Passive
2. Passive Aggressive
3. Aggressive

Passive Sharing of faith in Jesus Christ - What do people generally talk about? People generally will talk about what is most important to them, what they think about most. What is on my mind most often is the Lord Jesus Christ, so I naturally will talk about Him given the opportunity, not out of effort and not purposeful, His word is on my mind at all times. I consider this to be Passive because I am not purposefully going out of my way to share my faith but it is the natural manifestation of a spirit filled follower of Jesus Christ to talk about Him, His word, and what God is doing in your life.

Passive Aggressive Sharing of faith in Jesus Christ - In addition to natural conversation as we interact with people throughout daily life God has purposed in my heart to hand out Gospel tracts with a clear doctrinally sound gospel message to most people that I come into contact with, cashiers, wait staff, etc., it is away to communicate the gospel to a large amount of people when you do not have the time or means for a lengthy discussion. Gospel tracts are great; the receiver may read them then or keep them for later, they often will put them in their pocket then they wind up at home for others to read. I have an array of tracts with varying catchy statements on one side transitioning into the law and gospel on the other side. I also carry million dollar bill tracts in my wallet; these are great to pass out to cashiers when you are paying for something. I also like to leave these in waiting rooms and in public places, people will initially think they are money so they will pick them up and hopefully read them. You know those postage paid return envelopes you get in the mail when someone sends you a credit card offer or some other solicitation? I never throw those away, I drop in a gospel tract, and then pray for the person who will open it, then seal it up and put it back in the mail box. I consider gospel tracts to be Passive Aggressive because I am passing them out as I go throughout my daily life but I am doing so with the hope that someone may read it and come to repentance and faith, but at the same time I am dependent on them to actually pick up the tract and read it. I have a few sources where I get my tracts. A few I design myself and have them printed at a local print shop but I also order large numbers of tracts from either Living Waters or One Million Tracts.

Aggressively Sharing faith in Jesus Christ – This has changed over the years, the first aggressive or purposeful witnessing that I did involved gospel tracts. Black Friday 2010 I got 100 gospel tracts, headed to the local mall, walked around the mall and said; “Merry Christmas, God has given us the greatest gift of all” then handed them the tract then moved on. This was aggressive because it was not part of my everyday life; I had set a time and date, prayed about it, then set out with the specific purpose of sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with people. Throughout that next year I went out a few times purposefully handing out tracts. The beginning of this year through the internet I saw what some other believers were doing to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, I came under conviction. I made a 4ftx2 1/2ft wooden cross with these words on the cross beam “ARE YOU READY” I got this idea from an evangelist named Tony Miano. This is great because people will ask you, “Ready for what?” and there opens a door to share the gospel. At the beginning of this year I began going out to street corners in my community with the cross as people drive by for 30-60 minutes at a time at least once a week. At first I was quite and just stood with the cross but I will now sometimes do stop light preaching, a quick gospel message between stop lights or just simply recite scripture, this is best on nice days when people have their windows down. I along with some other men will go to events and preach the gospel in open-air. The first time I did this was on Good Friday this year. Nothing is more aggressive than preaching the gospel in open-air, because people will hear the law and gospel weather they want to or not. Now the word aggressive may have negative connotations in your mind and give you emotional apprehension. I don’t mean ugly or abusive which is what you might think when I use the word aggressive, all though sometimes a hearer may get ugly or abusive when they hear the law and gospel or see the cross because it is offensive to them. I call these things Aggressive Sharing of faith in Jesus Christ because when I do this I am going out with the sole purpose of sharing the law and gospel with as many people as I can, even those who may not want to hear it. Another aggressive type of sharing of your faith is one-on-one witnessing, if you have ever purposed to share the gospel with someone and did so that is aggressively sharing your faith.

The point I am trying to make is this. Our faith is and always has been meant to be displayed publically! Jesus said; “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:32-33) This does not mean that we earn our salvation by confessing Jesus Christ before men. Salvation is a gift of God, by the grace of God alone, through faith alone, in the Person and work of Jesus Christ alone. So what is Jesus saying here? If you believe you will confess Him before men and if you do not truly believe you will not, confessing Jesus before men is a natural manifestation of a saving faith. What keeps a true believer from sharing his faith at times? The answer is fear of man. Listen to what Jesus said about fearing men, “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28) So brothers and sisters let us share our faith!


“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.” (Mark 16:15)
Mike Peek a slave of Jesus Christ