The Supreme Court decision handed down in the case now known as “Dobbs,” ruled that there is no language in the United States Constitution that confers the right to an abortion. The ruling effectively overturned the landmark abortion decision of Roe v. Wade that had ruled there was a constitutional right to abortion.

Outside the Supreme Court protestors on both sides of the issue, pro-abortion and pro-life, waited. When the decision was announced overturning Roe v. Wade, both sides erupted. The pro-abortion side decried the decision and the pro-life side rejoiced. One pro-life supporter held up a sign that said, “God Wins!”

Did God win?

The decision of the Court in Dobbs was the correct one, the Constitution does not have a right to abortion written in it. Abortion before Roe v. Wade was historically and constitutionally (See the Ninth and Tenth Amendments) under the legal scope of the individual states. All Dobbs did was to return the issue of abortion to the legal and rightful authority of each state.

Sadly, some states have already moved, and others are considering, to make abortion for any reason legal. Other states are taking steps to legally protect the life of the unborn. Has God won?

The Scriptures declare, “Like a trampled spring and a polluted well, is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked,” Proverbs 25:26. When the righteous allow evil policies to reign we become self-polluted with the wicked. It is imperative that Christians exercise every right we have as citizens to see that our laws reflect what is best for human flourishing. Dobbs has merely highlighted the divide between the pro-abortion and pro-life positions and the differences between the two camps has become increasingly bitter.

Many of you probably know Milana Vayntrub the actress that plays the role of Lily Adams in the AT&T phone commercials. When she was 22 she had an abortion, and has been a very outspoken celebrity in favor of abortion.

Vayntrub said of her experience, “It was never even a thought that I was going to keep that child. There was no part of me that was like weighting the options. I was with my first boyfriend out of college, who’s a great dude and I love and is still my good friend but was not going to be my forever person. I was working at a job that was not paying me enough to even live the life that I had at that moment, let alone take on the giant financial strain that a child is and I just never felt like it was my child.”

I do not share Vayntrub’s words to vilify her; I shared them because her views reflect the widespread opinion of many women within our culture. She chose to have casual sex with someone and neither one, I assume, chose to use contraception. Because the pregnancy came at an inconvenient time she chose to abort her baby. She did not get an abortion for medical reasons but for convenience. She advocates for reproductive rights but actually wants the right not to reproduce.

Christians need to be advocates for righteousness and the unborn, but God has not won anything in the Dobbs decision. Until men and women are regenerated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ and value human life from conception as a sacred gift from God, only then will God have won.

Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine at Vladimir Putin’s behest was unprovoked and has threatened to end global peace and plunge the planet into World War III.

When Jesus was asked by his disciples what would be the sign of His return and the end of this age He said, “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars,” Matthew 24:6. Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine seems an eerie reminder of Christ’s prophetic words. If that is the case, does this mean God has predestined the human conflicts we witness occurring around the world to herald the return of His Son?

It is estimated that approximately twenty-five percent of the Bible when it was originally penned referenced future events. While there is much debate regarding the nature of biblical prophecy, I am convinced fatidic passages flow from two of God’s attributes, His omniscience and His omnipotence.

God knows everything and this includes what will happen in the future, and He is all-powerful and this includes His ability to control what will happen. While these are distinctive attributes of the Father, they do not operate independently of one another. What God predetermines to occur is subject to what He foreknows.

The clearest example of this is the fall of Adam and Eve. I do not believe God predestined Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, but foreknowing they would transgress; He had already predestined a Savior, a plan to remedy their rebellion to His law. Calvary was in the heart and mind of God at Creation.

This means that God foreknows each decision and action of saint and sinner, and without violating the will of either, He weaves all into the tapestry of human history so that human history flows inexorably to the culmination of His predetermined and perfect will.

When Jesus prophesied, “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars,” He does not mean God has predestined us to fight and kill each other, but He foresees that as men turn from God, they will turn on one another. God is not the author of evil nor does He predestine it, but He does foresee it and warns us of its approach.

I know I have waded into deep theological waters in this article, but I think it is important for those who read prophetic passages to have a proper perspective of what has been foretold. The conflicts we witness raging around the world merely presage an escalation of the same in incidence, duration and intensity, but the evil to come is manmade. We are prone to blame God for what transpires when in reality we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Russia is responsible for the invasion of the Ukraine, not God.

Joshua Payne-Elliott taught world language and social studies at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis, a Catholic school. He was fired from his job he had held for thirteen years in 2019. The archdiocese mandated “that all Catholic schools under its purview enforce a morality clause barring employees from entering into same-sex marriages.”

Payne-Elliott filed suit with the Indiana Supreme Court claiming among other things, discrimination.
After loosing his case, Payne Elliott said, “We would also like the citizens of Indiana to know that millions of taxpayer dollars are being redirected each year from public schools (where teachers have enforceable contract rights and rights to be free from discrimination) to private schools which target LGBTQ employees. We fear for the well-being of LGBTQ students and faculty in Catholic schools.”

Sure he does. He wasn’t suing for reinstatement to his old job or a fat check for punitive damages or loss of compensation, he was trying to watch out for the welfare of LGBTQ students and faculty. How noble and magnanimous of him. He also had the liberty, and I assume still does, to teach in a public school where he will be received with open arms. But he chose to sue.

There are a number of issues inherent in this case. What about pay vouchers for sending children to a private versus a public school? I hear people say they do not want their tax dollars to pay for sending children to a private school. You know the old separation of church and state thing.

I agree, I don’t want their tax dollars to support private religious schools. But here’s a news flash, Christians pay taxes too. I do not want my tax dollars going to support a public school system that is less interested in giving my children a basic education and more inclined to ideological indoctrination.
I do not think it is unreasonable or unfair for Christians to want a portion of their tax dollars to go to pay vouchers to a school of their choosing so their children can receive a basic education amid an atmosphere that supports biblical morality.

Now let’s turn our attention to what words mean and what discrimination is. Words have a denotation, what they actually mean, and a connotation, what they have come to mean in common usage. Follow me carefully here.

The word promiscuous has been linked so often with the word sexual that we think the word is always referring to something salacious, but that is its connotation. Promiscuous’ denotation comes from Latin and means to be indiscriminate, to not discriminate. When used in the term ‘sexually promiscuous’ it means someone who does not discriminate with whom they have sex. That lack of discrimination is not, generally speaking, a good thing.

I am married and I am sexually discriminate. I am only sexually intimate with my wife, thereby discriminating against every other woman by refusing to be sexually intimate with any of them (not that there are any knocking down my door). I think that is a good thing. My wife thinks that is a good thing. God thinks that is a good thing (See Exodus 20:14; Deuteronomy 5:18). This means discrimination can be a good thing, discrimination is not always a bad thing.

Discrimination involves a judgment call between what is right and what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. Jesus said, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment,” John 7:24. Jesus requires us to judge, to discriminate between what the Scriptures say is right and what they say is wrong.

Payne-Elliott says he was discriminated against; he was. He thinks that was a bad thing. The archdiocese discriminates by requiring its faculty and employees to conform to biblical morality. The archdiocese thinks that is a good thing. The Indiana Supreme Court decided it was too.

Franklin Graham recently returned from England having completed his God Loves You Tour in the United Kingdom. While there the show host Piers Morgan invited Graham to appear on his program “Uncensored.”

According to Graham, Piers Morgan asseverated, “Times are changing. People are changing. We’ve moved on so much from large swaths of the Bible.” Graham replied, “God doesn’t change. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

Piers Morgan holds to a secular view of culture and society, and he is right to observe times and people have changed. But Franklin Graham is right when he says God has not changed. God’s immutablity is one of His divine attributes, that is, God’s holy nature is predicated on eternal truth and from that God will not stray.

This why Samuel told Saul, “The Glory of Israel will not lie or change His mind; for he is not a man that He should change His mind,” 1 Samuel 15:29. Piers Morgan is right, men, people change; Franklin Graham is right God does not change.

I just turned seventy and the changes I have witnessed in my short life span are staggering. Technology has exploded. I remember as a child the telephone we had in our home. It was a landline and we shared a party line with other households. Today I have an iphone and can talk to anyone virtually anywhere in the world, at any time. And it is not just a phone, it is a minature computer that has more functions and capabilities than I can master.

Who in their wildest dreams ever imagined the advent of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and the significant impact they would have on international economics. There was a time when many Americans lived relatively unconcerned with what was happening in the political world and now seemed to be focused on it. The moral direction of our society here in America has declined sharply like a jet taking a nosedive.

Times and people have changed, but people in one aspect have not changed. Adam and Eve witnessed the depravity of the sin nature when their first son killed their second son, and we have been killing each other ever since.

God has not changed, he has given us in His word all the guidance we need for the human race to flourish and live in peace, but we scorn His word and ignore Him. If humanity would follow just the fifth through the tenth commandments of the ten He gave us, there would be no need for armies or criminal justice systems, but we are incapable of doing that.

Franklin’s father, Billy Graham once said, “The central issues of our time aren’t economic, political or social, important as these are. The central issues of our time are moral and spiritual in nature.” That has not changed.

Time and people have changed, for the worst and not the better. Maybe we should consider taking the advice of the One who does not change.

I recently reconnected with a childhood friend on Facebook. Our conversation eventually turned to spiritual matters. He told me he was a member of a United Methodist Church and he was concerned the denomination would splinter over LGBTQ issues.

I think he mentioned it to me thinking I might not be aware of what has made national news repeatedly regarding the UMC. For several years now the UMC has been wrestling with the conflicting views among its membership about what to do about LGBTQ issues.

My friend’s concerns are being confirmed; a megachurch north of Houston, Woodlands Methodist Church had a vote of whether or not to disaffiliate with the denomination over the issues of “same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ people.” Of those that voted, more than 96% voted to disaffiliate. Woodlands is the fourth largest church in the UMC constellation and second in reported Sunday attendance.

This signals what many churches within the denomination are considering, weary with the ongoing debate over LGBTQ issues. Conservative congregations and members of liberal congregations are beginning what will prove to be a mass exodus reminiscent of what occurred in the Presbyterian Church (USA) in the early 2000s.

The PC (USA) had been experiencing decline in membership for decades when it appointed The Theological Taskforce on Peace, Unity and Purity in 2001. The liberals within the denomination wanted peace, the moderates wanted unity, and the conservatives wanted purity.

The Taskforce admitted that a special focus would be on the “controversies over sexuality and ordination.” When the final report was published in 2006. The final report said, “sexual orientation is, in itself, no barrier to ordination,” while admitting the debate over sexuality and ordination “may continue for many years.”

The Taskforce failed to achieve its goal; it did not bring peace, unity or purity to the denomination. Dwindling membership which had been trickling for decades opened up the floodgates in the early 2000s for conservative congregations and members to leave weary with the incessant debate over matters of biblical certitude.

This scenario is being repeated in the United Methodist Church today. Congregations and members become fatigued debating issues clearly addressed in the Scriptures. Like Elijah addressing the nation of Israel over serving the true and living God or Baal, he asked, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” 1 Kings 18: 21.

Like the Presbyterian Church (USA), liberals in the United Methodist Church want peace moderates want unity, and conservatives want purity. Though the UMC has maintained the biblical teachings on sexuality and ordination, those who question the Scriptures teaching on those issues persist in challenging them. Denominational leaders were hesitant to enforce biblical mandates, so conservatives and liberals alike are deserting the denomination.

Two truths seem apparent; the United Methodist Church, as a denomination, is united no longer, and the majority of the churches disaffiliating with the denomination are uniting with conservative coalitions. While the LGBTQ crowd claim many within the culture support them and their lifestyle, the majority of Bible-believing churches do not find their practices scripturally acceptable.

There are other denominations and communions facing the same issues. While the LGBTQ crowd has been instrumental in dismantling denominations, they have not been able to dissuade Bible believing Christians to desert scriptural truth regarding human sexuality.

The real issue is whether or not we believe there is a God who has revealed His divine will and holy nature through the Bible. If they do, then to those wrestling with these same issues I would echo the words of Elijah, “How long will you hesitate between two opinions?  If the Lord is God, follow Him.”