One day a killer sneaked into heaven.
How? By the mercy and grace of God, of course.
But why would a forgiven soul ever need to sneak in? Because a forgiven soul knows the forgiveness, knows their trespass which required it, and knows the price that was paid to grant it. The very last thing a forgiven soul would ever do is stroll into heaven like one who “owns the place”—like one who did not need mercy and grace to get there.
As I was saying, one day a killer sneaked into heaven.
Oh, the meetings with saints of ancient ages! Samuel, the prophet, was so wise and so careful with his words! Mordecai was so inspiring with his faith and stories of determination! Peter and John and all the disciples of the Lord Jesus practically glowed. Maturity and wisdom emanated from them with such love. Yet the chance to meet King David was particularly welcomed. What a balm it was to meet a fellow killer, one who had likewise inflicted wrongful death, yet was granted mercy and grace, and through forgiveness managed to hobble along fairly successfully through the remainder of his earthly life, writing songs (psalms) and seeking to regain the place with God he once had and lost.
Then the killer encountered an unexpected class of people: Joyful souls of aborted babies. Millions upon millions of them played and laughed on a velvet verge of grassy meadows beneath solemn mountains and serene skies. There, playing among them, was the precious girl this person had killed, in a signally selfish yet “safe and legal” procedure.
The forgiven soul (the formerly selfish soul) longed to hold the girl, longed be with her. Just as that longing foot was lifted in the girl’s direction, a voice spoke up nearby.
“You can’t,” said the voice, with both authority and anguish melted together in love. “Not until you realize that she cannot know.”
“But…” the forgiven soul stammered.
“These little ones have been spared the agony of being unwanted. They don’t know. She has never known that her life on earth was extinguished. She has never known that the precious gift of life—her intended life on earth—was once counted as less than convenience and culture and campaigning and coy sloganeering. You may only approach her once you are committed to not infecting her with the agony of her having been unloved.”
“So, I cannot tell her who I am? This is hell then, not heaven! I’ve not yet been forgiven,” said the forlorn yet forgiven soul. “I somehow feared it couldn’t be true.”
“No,” said the voice. “If this were hell, you would be freely permitted to inflict all manner of suffering in her heart, and then suffer in your own heart over having made her suffer. She would eventually retaliate. It is because this is heaven and not hell that such a thing will not be permitted. Because this is heaven, you may go and be with her, but only as a stranger, at first, with no past. For her there is no past to be forgotten. The past you would seek to bring her is buried beneath The Blood, and unworthy of the bringing. Leave it behind, and then you may be with her.”
After a long pause (while considering all the ramifications with a clarity that was seldom possible back on earth) the forgiven soul finally asked, “Will there ever be a time, a thousand years from now, or a million—will there ever be a point when she might finally know and yet not suffer? Will there ever be a time when a billion years of me loving her would finally empower her to hear that painful past spoken without suffering over it?”
“If such a day were to ever come…” said the voice. “Yet on such a day, you would most likely have left that past buried for so long and be so far removed from it, that you will have lost all the want to drag it up from the depths of forgetting. You will most likely no longer wish to tell it.”
“I understand.”
“Then you may go to her.”
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof” (Proverbs 18:21 KJV).
A personal note from the author, Pastor Doug Joseph:
Today, January 17, 2016, is this year’s Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. During this annual event (on the third Sunday, the one nearest on the calendar to the anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision by the US Supreme Court), we set aside time to mourn the millions and millions of human babies lost via abortions, to pray for an end to abortion, and to reflect on and teach about the sanctity of human life, which, as a godly principle, goes deeper even than just the issue of abortion, affecting how we stand on everything from opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide, to advocating for compassionate love for children facing handicaps and for people facing various challenges and limitations. Being Pro-Life is about much more than opposing wrongful deaths. It is about loving life, and upholding the dignity of human life as a sacred gift from God. I hope you will join with me today in a generous donation to West Virginians For Life or your state’s affiliate of the National Right To Life Committee.
Kim Davis has done an admirable job of executing the portion of her job she could do, and respectfully declining on the part she cannot do, due to the legal chaos of the moment. The flawed and lawless decision of the SCOTUS in June has caused chaos. Between that lawless ruling, and the lawless command of the Kentucky governor to the state’s county clerks, and the lawless command of federal judge Bunning directly to Kim, she is between a rock and a hard place, yet she has taken a principled stand that is to be commended.
The Kentucky laws she is sworn to uphold have not been changed, and she is still upholding them. It would require a legislative response to the SCOTUS ruling to revise any Kentucky laws.
Furthermore, of the Kentucky laws that apply to clerks regarding marriage licenses, none of them pronounce any penalty for refusing to give out a license, but they do provide a misdemeanor penalty for giving a license to a couple who may not, per Kentucky law, constitute a marriage, and that includes a misdemeanor penalty for giving a license to partners of the same sex. Since the Kentucky legislature has not revised those codes, and no revisions or new laws by the Kentucky General Assembly have been signed into law by the Kentucky governor, it is simply too early in the process for same-sex couples to be demanding any licenses there, and it is wrong (see below) for either the governor or the judge to command such, given the current situation.
The state governor is sworn to uphold Kentucky law, which directs him (not just in some ruling, but in written, duly legislated and signed law — see the KY state Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or KY RFRA) to seek out a method of enacting the government’s goals in a way that is “least restrictive” of Kim Davis’ religious freedom. Ordering her to violate existing Kentucky laws and at the same time ordering her to violate her conscience, is not the least restrictive means to enact what he is presenting as a governmental goal.
Similarly, the federal judge is bound to abide by federal law, which requires him (not just in some ruling, but in written, duly legislated and signed law — see the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or federal RFRA) to seek out a method of enacting the government’s goals in a way that is “least restrictive” of Kim Davis’ religious freedom. Ordering her to violate existing Kentucky laws and at the same time ordering her to violate her conscience, is not the least restrictive means to enact what he is presenting as a governmental goal. Jailing her is certainly not the least restrictive way.
Given the comparative ease of simply revising the marriage licenses by removing all clerks’ names from them, the accommodation she requested is quite reasonable, and both the governor and the judge violated existing laws in their actions and inactions. Since both were willing to abide by her being wrongfully incarcerated rather than accommodating her, I advocate for them to be impeached. I certainly urge protest over their violations against Kim Davis. In spite of calling for their impeachment, I have been fervently praying for them, and will continue. If you are not praying for them, you should be.
Ultimately, a pastor’s advice is of most value to fellow believers. Regarding believers, as per Romans 14, we are not to judge or condemn another believer regarding matters of conscience, even if, or rather especially when, his or her conviction of conscience differs from your own. The whole point of religious freedom is that not everyone’s religious convictions will match with yours, and we need to allow other believers, who may have stricter views than ours, to hold those views. That said, I don’t disagree with Sister Kim Davis on this. Even if I disagreed, I would still support her 100%. Even if you don’t agree with her views and position, I implore you to study Romans 14, and grant her the liberty to have a conviction you don’t share. Don’t bash her on social media. Support and pray for her, as well as praying for her state, her governor, her legislature, the judge, and the SCOTUS whose ruling caused the chaos we’re all enduring.
Mike Huckabee, former governor and current candidate for US president, when asked why he supports Kim Davis (full video below):
“Because this is the criminalization of Christianity. What she [Kim Davis] did was follow the Kentucky Constitution, voted on by 75% of the people. She has now been criminalized— She’s being held without bail. I want you to think about this. Jeffrey Dahmer [serial killer] got bail. Albert DeSalvo, the ‘Boston Strangler,’ got bail. John Wayne Gacy [serial killer and rapist] got bail. Kim Davis, because she followed her convictions, is put in jail, and is not given bail. This is an unbelievable moment in American history, and I think it may wake people up— because who’s next? Are pastors next? Florists? Caterers? Who else goes to jail before this is over? And the Supreme Court reached out into thin air and created a redefinition of marriage. There is no authorization from the Congress. The president has never signed a bill that enabled this idea of same sex marriage. And I think it’s interesting— in Tennessee, yesterday, there was a judge that dismissed a divorce case. He said, ‘If the court doesn’t think the people of Tennessee are smart enough to know when a marriage starts and what it looks like, then I guess the court doesn’t give us enough sense to know how to end one.’ So, he dismissed the divorce case. The implications of this are extraordinarily far reaching, and that’s why we’re going to be in Kentucky on Tuesday, three o’clock, to rally for Kim Davis, and to rally for religious liberty, and, most importantly, to rally for there to be consistency in the law.”
He was asked more questions and the articulate answers continued:
I support Kim Davis 100%. Below is a video that proposes to teach how to “silence” me (and the title calls me an idiot, to boot, which is an ad hominem argument). First, watch the clip, then read my reply.
Warning: Some crude language.
Well, I’m a Kim Davis supporter, and it does not silence me. The clip is woefully wrong on so many levels. Let’s name just a few:
This amazing article on canning was really intriguing. You won’t even believe what some people have canned, and for how long it can remain editable, and even improve in flavor instead of degrading. The last thing on the list will blow your mind! Read the full article.
This WCHS channel 8 report is either biased or hugely ignorant: it paints the Democrats’ recently defeated bill as being about “free contraception,” when it was actually about overturning the Hobby Lobby ruling, which was about (and specifically limited to) abortifacients as pertaining to an unlawful effort by HHS to force persons to pay for the abortifacients, even if against their religious convictions.
Furthermore, the report inaccurately implies that the bill was about “restoring” something that American women supposedly lost due to the Hobby Lobby ruling. That is either deliberately misleading or ignorantly misguided, as the whole point of the Hobby Lobby case was that the unlawful HHS mandate tried to impose a brand new burden on religious persons (that of paying for abortifacient coverage for employees) which was not something that American women ever “had” previously.
Since there never was such a mandate lawfully implemented against religious persons, there is nothing to be “restored.” The HHS mandate itself was not implemented by Congress. It was conjured out of thin air by HHS, and insomuch as it sought to overpower religious persons (via coercing closely-held corporations), it was against the law from the start. In other words, it was always illegal from the start. It never legally existed as far as closely-held, religious, for-profit corporations are concerned. Not only was the mandate itself unlawful from the start, but it never actually took hold—an injunction was granted. Then it was invalidated by the US Supreme Court before ever being enforced for even a single day against Hobby Lobby.
Both before and after the ruling, any American woman employed by a religious person/corporation had and still has the legal occasion to buy and pay for certain abortifacients, on her own. To reiterate, those women still have that option now. There was only an unlawful, failed attempt by HHS to create a government mandate that all corporations, even closely-held religious ones (both for-profits and non-profits), be compelled (by penalty of crippling fines) to pay for abortifacient coverage in violation of religious conviction. It was struck down, as pertaining to closely-held, religious, for-profit corporations. American women lost nothing by that ruling. There was never anything to be restored. How can the reporter be so mistaken on this?
Furthermore, it is both alarming and sad that Senator Manchin is so easily confused and so utterly mistaken on the true issues at stake here. According to the report, Senator Manchin holds that if one is a religious person then he or she is not permitted to make a profit as a corporation and still have his or her religious freedom protected. The senator is simply, sadly, horrendously wrong. Religious persons are indeed free to make a profit, even as corporations, and not check their religion at the door. So says the law, in clear language, and thus it was upheld by the Supreme Court.
If you wanted to see fireworks in D.C., you didn’t have to wait for July 4th. Yesterday’s decision on the HHS mandate exploded on the media scene, lighting a fuse under the radicals of the Left. While most Americans watched with pleasure as a pillar of ObamaCare fell, liberals sulked at another loss for lawlessness. Democrats couldn’t fire off their press releases fast enough as they vowed to push their assault on faith in the marketplace by ending justices’ opt-out. Promising a legislative fix, Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) insisted that Americans’ “right” to sex-on-demand trumps a company’s deeply held beliefs on contraception and abortifacients.
As out of touch as liberals are with the law, it turns out that they’re even more out of touch with voters. While the Left trotted out its tired “war on women” line, FRC’s Cathy Ruse pointed out that the majority of women opposed the mandate — including 60% of the lower court female judges who voted to stop it!
Read more at Family Research Council.
