February 7, 2012

By Peter Heck

Call it Planned Parenthood’s war on choice.  In less time than it takes to scald a child to death with a saline injection into the womb, the rabid pro-abortion lobby descended like vultures upon the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation.  The Komen crime?  They dared exercise their right to choose when it came to who would receive their donations and funding.

The relationship between Komen and the abortion mill has always been baffling on several levels.  Komen was started to find ways to save the sick and suffering.  Planned Parenthood began as an organization based upon the Margaret Sanger lie of eugenics, which taught that weaker beings should be exterminated.  Komen exists upon the fundamental concept that all life is valuable.  Planned Parenthood exists upon the fundamental deceit that only “wanted” or “convenient” life is worthy of protection.  Komen’s answer to social problems is to strive to find ways to support the living.  Planned Parenthood’s answer to social problems is to increase access to killing procedures.

And then there’s the abortion-breast cancer link, which leaves a rational mind boggled as to why an abortion provider would ever receive funding from an organization fighting breast cancer.  While pro-abortion activists rail that any supposed link between the two is debunked, that just isn’t true.

Planned Parenthood claims that the National Cancer Institute officially denied abortion as a risk factor for breast cancer in their 2003 conference.  But what PP conveniently neglects to mention is that the decision to do so was purely political and was accompanied by many dissenting voices, like Joel Brind of Baruch College.  Brind, a Ph.D. endocrinologist in New York City, complains that the conference “refused to allow attending scientists to present the opposing position of the scientific research establishing the link, showing that abortion was declassified as a cancer risk for political and not scientific reasons.”  They also ignore the inconvenient fact that the NCI’s lead researcher has now completely retreated from her position.

Darrell Birkey, the research director for American Right to Life, confirms, “Louise A. Brinton was largely responsible for getting the government-funded NCI to deny the abortion-breast cancer link … she has now reversed herself and co-authored a study which includes ‘induced abortion’ as a significant breast cancer risk factor.”

These facts alone, far more than any Republican investigation of Planned Parenthood’s sleazy business practices (could you honestly expect anything less from an organization whose annual profit margins are directly tied to the number of children they killed that year?), is what should prompt Komen not only to yank Planned Parenthood’s funding, but also to publicly declare Planned Parenthood an enemy to the Komen cause.

But instead, just three days after publicly announcing their decision to stop accepting grant applications from an organization that has facilitated the murder of nearly 25 million future American women and maimed thousands of others, Susan G. Komen for the Cure founder Nancy Brinker announced their reversal.  “We have been distressed at the presumption that the changes made to our funding criteria were done for political reasons,” she explained.  Apparently she and the Komen board of directors are not distressed by the obvious awareness that this second change was done for political reasons.

To call this turn of events bizarre is an epic understatement.  Komen’s original decision to affirm life by denying grants to a killing machine was not met with a negative public backlash.  Much the opposite: after severing ties with Planned Parenthood, Brinker confirmed that support for Komen had skyrocketed in the 48 hours that followed.  “Our donations are up 100 percent in the past two days,” she reported.

For their part, Planned Parenthood used the controversy to extort $400,000 from their supporters and to flex their political muscles in a public bullying crusade that folded Komen’s weak spine in record time.  The queen of abortion, Cecile Richards, bragged that it was the “compassionate outcry in support of those most in need” that had brought Planned Parenthood victory.

It’s safe to say that “those most in need” are not the vulnerable baby girls in the womb threatened by an organization that regards them as less than human.  Of course, it’s also not teenage girls who are manipulated into choosing to kill the life within them by an organization that intentionally avoids telling them the grave risks involved.  And it’s not the countless adult women who are left alone with haunting dreams and the emotional trauma of abortion by an organization that used them for profit.  And since Planned Parenthood doesn’t even do mammograms, it can’t be poor women looking for cheap cancer screenings.  So who are “those most in need”?

The answer is all those who have come into contact with the false prophets of “choice.”  Shame on Komen for disgracing its cause by empowering the evil of Planned Parenthood.

Peter is a public high school government teacher and radio talk show host in central Indiana.  E-mail peter@peterheck.com, visit www.peterheck.com, or like him on Facebook.

God Can Resurrect Your Marriage from the Ashes

Part 2

Sharon Jaynes

Today’s Truth

“So I prophesied as he [God] commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet-a vast army,” (Ezekiel 37:10 NIV).

Friend to Friend

I can hardly wait for you to read the rest of the story from yesterday. If you missed it, please go back and read it first. Here’s where we left off…Don and Jona were divorced.

Now friends, the next part of the story is what Dr. Phil did not tell you. God began working on Jona’s heart. She didn’t change because of a self-help book or a ten step program, but because of the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. Do you want to know what really happened? Do you want to know what Dr. Phil did not tell his viewers? Grab a cup of coffee and keep reading.

God took Jona to a place of repentance and began to soften, remold and remake her very heart. That’s what God does. He doesn’t try to cover up our flaws; He starts from scratch and makes us new. While the divorce was final, God was only just beginning to work on Jona’s heart.

“God took me to a place of repentance,” Jona explained. “For the first time, through a support group, I saw clearly what I had done to destroy my marriage. I had always blamed our problems on Don changing jobs so often, but the real problem was my lack of respect for the God appointed leader of my home. I was the real problem and Don simply couldn’t take it anymore. I had rejected Don with my words, my appearance, and my withdrawal of physical touch.”

Whether or not God could salvage the marriage, Jona made a commitment that she would allow God to salvage her.

Jona’s heart longed to be reunited to Don, but her ultimate goal was to become the woman God wanted her to be. She immersed herself in Bible study and prayer, and began to take an interest in her appearance. Interesting, as the pounds began to drop, so did the scales that had covered her eyes.

“I began to understand what God’s Word said about the relationship between a husband and wife. I was not Don’s Holy Spirit. I was not the leader of my home. God had called me to respect Don as the leader, to honor him as a child of God, and to love him with my all. One day when Don came to pick up our two boys, I shared with him what I had been learning.”

“I told Don that I knew that we were divorced, but I was making a commitment to submit to him. I didn’t when we were married, but I did from that time forward.”

“That’s fine,” he told me. “But you need to know I’m moving on with my life.”

“You can move on,” I said, “But I’m staying right here.”

Jona continued to encourage Don and give him her BEST.

“BEST stands for bless, edify, share, and touch,” she explained. “I began to touch him when he came by the house. I’d pat his back or give him a quick hug. When I knew he was coming, I’d put on a nice dress and fix my hair. I’d tell him I was proud of how he was handling the boys and share with him what God was teaching me. Some people told him I was trying to trick him and that he should ignore me. But it wasn’t a trick. God had changed my heart and I was committed, no matter what happened between us in the future, to never go back to being that bitter woman I had been before.”

“Sharon, I hate to tell you this,” she said, “but for the first time, I prayed for Don. I had never prayed for him before, but now I pray for him all the time.”

Jona lost the added pounds and gained a beautiful glowing countenance. It was amazing. More than the change in her physical appearance, the glow of Jesus Christ shone through her radiant face.

Don was confused at times and a bit leery of the change. “Why do you think I’m wonderful, all of a sudden?” he asked her.

“Because now I see you through God’s eyes,” she explained. “I see that you are a wonderful man.”

Don fell in love with Jona all over again. No, it wasn’t a trick – it was a miracle. God has given them a second chance. They were remarried on August 24, 2003. Oh how I love God … He is the God of second chances.

Dear friends, Jona has so graciously allowed me to tell you her story because she has decided that she will do anything to help one woman not make the same mistakes she has made. She cried and cried all through the recounting of the story, and relived the pain…for you. “God allowed me to go to a terrible place,” Jona explained. “My prayer is that others will not have to go to that place before they wake up and realize what they are doing to their men.”

And that…is what Dr. Phil did not tell you.

Let’s Pray

Dear LORD, help me be the woman my husband needs for me to be. Help me to stop concentrating on his faults and failures, but start looking at my own. Show me. Teach me. Empower me.  In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Now It’s Your Turn

Is God telling you there is something you need to do differently in your marriage? Is there something you need to do differently in other important relationships in your life?

You know, Jona did not destroy her marriage by herself. Don made his fair share of mistakes too.  But here’s the thing – we cannot change another person. We can only change ourselves. And sometimes…that is enough.

Consider giving your BEST to others. Write out the acronym and keep it in a prominent place.

BLESS

EDIFY

SHARE

TOUCH

- Bible Gateway.Com

Starting Fresh
T. Suzanne Eller

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone: a new life has begun.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NLT)

It was a typical holiday scene. My mother hummed an off-key tune in the kitchen. My father lounged in his faded blue recliner, while my husband and brothers talked about the football game on TV. The younger children played cards, while the older kids talked about my daughter’s recent acceptance into college.

As I viewed the scene, I stood still in my tracks. Wait! When did we become a “typical family?”

My past will never resemble a Hallmark card. My mother had her first baby at 15. She lost her footing as she tried to be a young mother and wife. She was physically and verbally abused by her young husband and fled at age 20 to start over. Alone and pregnant-with me-mom met a good man and later they married.

But the emotional baggage took its toll on that relationship, and later on our entire family. She often threatened suicide. She raged. She lashed out physically. She begged for forgiveness. If I let my guard down to love, the next day or the next week a new scene would unfold. My heart hardened at a tender age.

Flash forward 25 years. I am no longer a child. I’m a woman with young adult children of my own. God has healed my heart.

As I stood in the living room I realized that I still viewed my family through the past. I had let go of the resentment, the anger. I loved my mother and father, but I still saw my extended family as broken. In far too many ways our relationship was founded on that perception.

I stepped back and took a good long look. Who was my mom now? How had she grown? Did I recognize what God had performed in her life?

The answer was no, and I was not alone in this thinking. My siblings also wrestled with this. No matter what my mother did, no matter how much she had overcome, she still had a scarlet letter branded on her. She was marked “B” for broken.

My family had been “normal” longer than dysfunctional. I realized it was time to step into the present and leave the past behind.

That day I fully transitioned from child to adult. I reflected on what God can do in spite of a broken past. I rejoiced in what had taken place in the heart of my mother and our family. It didn’t just change me, but it changed my mother and our relationship. Somehow she knew we had crossed a new threshold. The burden of guilt was eased as she looked into my eyes and realized I saw her fully as the woman she had become.

Several holidays have passed since that day. My mother still hums off-key. I still bring desert. But when I look at my family, I don’t just see a family gathering, I see a portrait of God’s grace.

Dear Jesus, do I recognize the miracles You have done in my loved ones? Do I hold on to resentment even if that person has changed? Give me new eyes to see. Paint the picture fresh for me as I extend the mercy You so freely gave to me to one person in my life today. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Related Resources:
Do You Know Him?

The Mom I Want to Be: Rising Above Your Past to Give Your Kids a Great Future by T. Suzanne Eller

Visit Suzie’s blog where she shares what to do when a dysfunctional loved one hasn’t changed. Make sure to check out her other resources here!

Reflect and Respond:
Refocus: I’ll take the spotlight off my childhood and put it on to the present.

Be Realistic: Even normal families have conflict. There is no such thing as a perfect family.

Relent: Do I rehash bad family memories or bring up the past to punish a loved one? Am I willing to begin a new conversation?

Receive: Amends may be awkward and not what I think they should be. True grace is receiving a gesture with the same spirit with which it is offered.

“If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Power Verse:
Matthew 9:13a, “Then he added, ‘Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’” (NLT)

- Bible Gateway.Com

This week’s reading: Acts 16:33

Christians differ on the fitting age for full initiation into the life of the church. For those who practice infant baptism, the question centers on when someone is ready for confirmation and first Communion. Some think the “age of discretion” is age 12, because it’s the age at which Jesus encountered the teachers of the Law and probably had his bar mitzvah, when he could fully participate in Jewish worship.

For those who believe baptism should be reserved for believers, the question centers on when one is capable of truly repenting and embracing Christ in wholehearted discipleship. Some emphasize the adult character of this decision, making baptism a post-puberty rite. For others, the age is much lower; some even baptize toddlers.

Some guidelines for determining an appropriate age: First, we should not impose some arbitrary age. God works sovereignly in the lives of all persons made in his image. Each child should be dealt with individually and encouraged toward every “step toward Jesus” without manipulating for an early decision. Second, we need to develop a proper understanding of God’s relationship to children. The Bible seems to indicate that the children of believing parents stand in a special providential relationship to the people and promises of God (see 1Co 7:14). It is the responsibility of parents and the church to lead those children by prayers, instruction and example toward true faith in Christ.

- Bible Gateway.Com

James 5:16 “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working” (v. 16).

After explaining justification by faith alone (Rom. 1-4), Paul lists the benefits of being counted righteous in God’s sight. The second blessing he describes is that we have “obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand” (5:2). As members of the new covenant, we are privileged to be able to enter into the most holy place and commune with the Lord because of Jesus ( Heb. 6:19-20).

Prayer has been given to us so that we may enter into this holy place to commune with our Father in heaven. As the bride of Christ, we know that He wants us to approach Him with our needs and with our petitions for the sake of the kingdom. After all, if a good marriage on earth depends on communication with one’s spouse, how much more does a blessed relationship with our Lord depend on speaking with Him on a regular basis?

Unfortunately, many of us do not often take advantage of the awesome privilege of prayer. True, we mean well. We establish certain times of the day to approach God, but we find that our minds wander or that all we do is read off a laundry list of our own needs. God is, of course, concerned about these needs (Matt. 6:30), but we sense that we are too self-centered in our prayer lives when all we do is tell God what we need or what we want.

Not knowing how to pray is probably the main reason why we encounter these problems. Thankfully, we have a model in Scripture from our Savior Himself on the things we should pray for. The Lord’s Prayer is not simply something that we should recite in church and at home; it is a guide Jesus gives us for structuring our communication with God (Luke 11:1-13). Fundamentally, this prayer tells us to ask that God’s name be hallowed so that His kingdom may come and His will be done.

In A Simple Way to Pray , Martin Luther suggests that Christians pray through the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer, using each line as a springboard for adoring God, confessing sin, expressing gratitude and pouring forth supplications. Using such tools helps keep our minds focused on those things our Father is most concerned about.

Coram deo: Living before the face of God

As an illustration of Luther’s advice, take some time today to pray through the Ten Commandments. Take each stipulation and confess how you have violated that particular law. Worship Him for the perfection of His character revealed in each commandment. Thank Him for enabling you by the Spirit to be faithful to His Law and ask for His kingdom to come so that all may love and obey Him. Make it your aim to pray to our heavenly Father without ceasing.

For further study:

Psalm 54

The Bible in a year:

Leviticus 16

- Bible Gateway.Com

Morning

“Arise, and depart.”
Micah 2:10

The hour is approaching when the message will come to us, as it comes to all–”Arise, and go forth from the home in which thou hast dwelt, from the city in which thou hast done thy business, from thy family, from thy friends. Arise, and take thy last journey.” And what know we of the journey? And what know we of the country to which we are bound? A little we have read thereof, and somewhat has been revealed to us by the Spirit; but how little do we know of the realms of the future! We know that there is a black and stormy river called “Death.” God bids us cross it, promising to be with us. And, after death, what cometh? What wonder-world will open upon our astonished sight? What scene of glory will be unfolded to our view? No traveller has ever returned to tell. But we know enough of the heavenly land to make us welcome our summons thither with joy and gladness. The journey of death may be dark, but we may go forth on it fearlessly, knowing that God is with us as we walk through the gloomy valley, and therefore we need fear no evil. We shall be departing from all we have known and loved here, but we shall be going to our Father’s house–to our Father’s home, where Jesus is–to that royal “city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” This shall be our last removal, to dwell forever with him we love, in the midst of his people, in the presence of God. Christian, meditate much on heaven, it will help thee to press on, and to forget the toil of the way. This vale of tears is but the pathway to the better country: this world of woe is but the stepping-stone to a world of bliss.

“Prepare us, Lord, by grace divine,

For thy bright courts on high;

Then bid our spirits rise, and join

The chorus of the sky.”

Evening

“And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither.”
Revelation 11:12

Without considering these words in their prophetical connection, let us regard them as the invitation of our great Forerunner to his sanctified people. In due time there shall be heard “a great voice from heaven” to every believer, saying, “Come up hither.” This should be to the saints the subject of joyful anticipation. Instead of dreading the time when we shall leave this world to go unto the Father, we should be panting for the hour of our emancipation. Our song should be–

“My heart is with him on his throne,

And ill can brook delay;

Each moment listening for the voice,

Rise up and come away.’”

We are not called down to the grave, but up to the skies. Our heaven-born spirits should long for their native air. Yet should the celestial summons be the object of patient waiting. Our God knows best when to bid us “Come up hither.” We must not wish to antedate the period of our departure. I know that strong love will make us cry,

“O Lord of Hosts, the waves divide,

And land us all in heaven;”

but patience must have her perfect work. God ordains with accurate wisdom the most fitting time for the redeemed to abide below. Surely, if there could be regrets in heaven, the saints might mourn that they did not live longer here to do more good. Oh, for more sheaves for my Lord’s garner! more jewels for his crown! But how, unless there be more work? True, there is the other side of it, that, living so briefly, our sins are the fewer; but oh! when we are fully serving God, and he is giving us to scatter precious seed, and reap a hundredfold, we would even say it is well for us to abide where we are. Whether our Master shall say “go,” or “stay,” let us be equally well pleased so long as he indulges us with his presence.

- Bible Gateway.Com

1. The prophet who was born at Elkosh in Galilee, and who prophesied against Nineveh (Nah. 1:1).

The Man Who Preached Doom

Nothing is known of this Minor Prophet outside of what we find in the opening of his small yet strong book. He was born at Elkosh, a village of Palestine. But although Nahum is among the notable unknown of the Bible, he was a student of the history of his time and was raised up to comfort God’s people. He prophesied against Nineveh about 150 years after Jonah’s revival there. At that time the city was still at the height of its glory (Nah. 3:16, 17). The empire was extremely cruel. The people gloated that “space failed for corpses of their enemies.” They made “pyramids of human heads.” Pillars were covered with the flayed skins of their rivals.

Nahum’s mission was to declare the terrible doom of Nineveh and one hundred years later it fell. So great was the destruction of the city of the most ferocious, sensual, diabolically atrocious race of men that ever lived, that Alexander the Great marched by and did not know that a great city was under his feet. Lucian wrote, “Nineveh is perished and there is no trace left where once it was.” Nahum, convinced that God was slow to anger but would yet take vengeance on His adversaries, “focusses the light of God’s moral government upon wicked Nineveh and chants the death and dirge of the world’s greatest oppressor.”

The leading lessons to be gleaned from the Book of Nahum are encouraging to faith:

I. The goodness and unchangeableness of Jehovah.

II. The limits of divine forbearance.

III. Right prevails in the end.

IV. Darkness comes before the dawn.

V. The universality of God’s government, its gracious purpose: its retributive character.

VI. Man’s extremity is faith’s hour and God’s opportunity.

2. Another Nahum. In the A. V. Naum is mentioned as an ancestor of Jesus Christ (Luke 3:25).

- Bible Gateway.Com

The U.S. navy has awarded a $10 million contract to research a power supply for its hi-tech ‘rail gun’ – an electromagnetic weapon that hurls projectiles at 5,000 miles per hour.

‘This new system will dramatically change how our Navy engages enemies,’ said Joe Biondi, vice president of of Raytheon’s Integrated Defense Systems business, which received the contract.

The gun use electromagnetism to hurl projectiles it along a track-like ‘rail’ instead of down a gun barrel. The shells it fires aren’t explosive – they damage targets by sheer force of impact.

The rail gun system fires projectiles by hurling them down a metal ‘rail’, rather than using explosives. The gun fires projectiles at 5,000 miles per hour, over a range of hundreds of miles.

A test version of the weapon is already working, and has been for some years. The U.S. navy has fired it more than 1,000 times under test.

It’s never been fired from on board a ship. Raytheon is to develop a power array to concentrate power in the electrically charged parallel rails.

It could take up to a decade to find its way into shipboard systems – and the budget for the final weapon is now in some doubt.

The energy level has jumped from 0.5 megajoules to 1.5 megajoules.

Even at one megajoule, the projectiles hit with the force of a one-ton car striking a wall at 100mph.

The impact of the projectile hitting a target would be 33 times that force.

The railgun developed by the Navy launches and accelerates conductive projectiles along pairs of metal rails using the effects of a strong magnetic field.

It can accelerate a seven pound projectile to a speed of 5,600 miles per hour.

Navy officials said that the range of a railgun is up to 20 times greater than that of conventional weapon systems.

A projectile could reach a target 290 miles away in less than six minutes and impact it with incredible force.

The aim is to potentially replace extremely expensive Tomahawk missiles.
Naval Research Laboratory Commanding Officer, Capt. Paul Stewart said: ‘A railgun weapons system must be able to launch hundreds of projectiles and withstand extreme pressures, currents and temperatures.

The latest tests were carried out at the Naval Research Laboratory Materials Testing Facility in Dahlgren, Virginia.

The military is determined to press ahead despite the possibility of budget cuts casting doubt on its future.

Programme manager Roger Ellis said: ‘People see these things in the video games, but this is real.

- Prophecy News Watch

But the spectacle is real and the robotic nano quadrotors – despite being not much bigger than your hand – could one day revolutionise warfare.

The miniature helicopters, which have four propellers, are still in their infancy in development but have been extensively trialled in carrying items and manoeuvre through small gaps.

It is hoped they may be useful in locations where construction is hazardous for humans, such as in war zones, oil rigs or on extremely tall skyscrapers.

Now, a team from the University of Pennsylvania, which is well known for its quadrotor research, have programmed the mini choppers to carry out autonomous swarm behaviour.

This means they can fly like birds or bees, moving en masse in a synchronised fashion in one direction or another without be programmed to perform individual manoeuvres.

Up to 20 nano quadrotors swarm around in multiple formations that echo the Red Arrows – except that these craft can get much closer to each other.

The swarm is sufficiently intelligent that it can take into consideration obstacles while on a formation flight.

The video shows how each autonomous quadrotor manages to hold its position perfectly during movement while gracefully transitioning between different 3D shapes.

At one point they are able shrink the formation, fly through a window and produce the exact same size shape on the other side.

Trickier yet, they can perform a figure of eight with each craft looping around without bumping into each other.

Whether or not the craft can be used to perform functions in the outside world remains to be seen.

But, although little has been revealed about their technology, robotic nano quadrotors are clearly off to a flying star.
- Prophecy News Watch