The cry went out, “Bring the Children to the Church.”
On April 8th Christians will celebrate the historic event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Five billion people will not care or, in many cases, even know. Many of the two billion who mark Easter 2012 will question that the physical resurrection happened. It happened. There is far more solid historic evidence that the resurrection of Jesus Christ happened than that Julius Caesar ever lived. (even though his book “De Bello Gallico” and Other Commentaries is in print today.) No single event in history reaches the magnitude of that Friday and Sunday when every person who believes or will believe was saved from death and delivered into eternal life. This is the greatest thing that has or could happen on this earth.
But Jesus coming changed the entire world in many other ways. Dr. Steve Goold, the senior teaching Pastor at New Hope Church in Minnesota, covered several a few months ago. They are profound and exciting. We are examining them in several posts leading up to Holy Week. Here is Dr. Goold with the second:
Jesus came and Christ brought dignity to human life. This is huge; dignity and value to all human life. You see life was cheap in early Paganism. Half the kids didn’t live beyond age eight back then largely due to widespread infanticide. Life has always been cheap outside the values of the Creator of life. I refer to the practices of the Canaanite before the Jewish Conquest of the Promised Land. I refer to the Babylonian and Meade-Persian Empires. I refer to the Greeks and to Rome, to the Mayans of Mexico. Prominent civilizations of extraordinary accomplishments, yes. Value upon human life, very marginal. In the world over today where Christianity is illegal, Christ is rejected and God’s Word is ignored, in virtually all cultures that do not have their history in Christianity or that have departed and lost their way, the value and the dignity of human life is viewed marginally. Worldwide; here in America, when the people turn from Christ and reject His message, it results in a growing culture of narcissism for the healthy and the strong and the diminishment of life for the helpless and the weak. Remember this, Jesus and His Gospel brings honor and dignity and value to human life wherever the Gospel is embraced and truly practiced. Abortion literally disappeared in the early Church. Infanticide and abandonment of children disappeared. The cry went out, “Bring the Children to the Church.” Orphanages began to be built. Hospitals began to be built. Housing for the homeless, assistance for the downtrodden, It was and is today repeatedly the tenants of Biblically Christianity flowing out of the Gospel and the power of the living God to come to this earth today that repeatedly that tears—when they’re torn down—the vestiges of racism and opposition diminishment of humankind in any way. It is the tenants of Christianity that began to destroy the structure of slavery after Christ was born. It raises its ugly head and face continuously because of the sin nature of humans. But when God changes a heart today one of the things that happens is an instinctive wholesome value on every dimension of human life—every dimension of human life. Just stop and think about it for a moment, pro-life clinics across America and around the world are almost exclusively staffed by those who boldly make the claim of Jesus Christ as their Savior through the power of His shed blood on the cross. The death clinics across our nation today; the death clinics for babies in the womb are virtually exclusively staffed by ones who do not confess Jesus Christ as Savior through His atoning work on the Cross and that’s a fact.
THE SERIES:
WE ARE ABOUT TO CELEBRATE AN HISTORIC EVENT THAT CHANGED ALL THE WORLD—PART I: JESUS SET THE CLOCK
The Patriot's Trumpet 