The church must proclaim the mercy of Christ who came to live, die, and rise again to save hell-deserving sinners by faith in Him — forgiving all of His people’s sins, including the sin of abortion. However, the state’s role is not to show grace but to do justice: to praise those who do good and to punish evil (1 Pet 2:14).

Christians of Alabama: In gratitude for God’s grace in the Gospel, you need to be the modern-day William Wilberforce.
No, not someone else — you. Yes, you. God commands us: “seek justice, correct oppression” (Isa 1:17).  What did that mean in Wilberforce’s day? The most heinous injustice in his time was the slave trade. So Wilberforce preached against that evil and sought for it to be outlawed.
What is the most barbaric injustice of our time? Worldometer statistics report that abortion is the leading cause of death in the world today, accounting for about 40% of all deaths. Abortion is also the leading cause of death in the United States, where there are “1,500 to 2,500 abortions per day. Nearly 20% of all pregnancies in the USA … end in abortion.” One out of five. This is a crisis! Christians ought to be speaking out against this evil and seeking to outlaw it.
The church must proclaim the mercy of Christ who came to live, die, and rise again to save hell-deserving sinners by faith in Him — forgiving all of His people’s sins, including the sin of abortion. However, the state’s role is not to show grace but to do justice: to praise those who do good and to punish evil (1 Pet 2:14).
Many people think that abortion is illegal in Alabama, but it is not. By way of analogy, imagine there was a crisis of 13-year-olds being killed. So a law is passed that says you cannot hire an assassin to kill your 13-year-old, but you can kill your 13-year-old if you “do it yourself” (DIY). If that was the solution, we would all agree that is not going nearly far enough. We need to make it a crime for you to kill your 13-year-old.
Well, that is what has happened in Alabama with regard to preborn babies. In the Human Life Protection Act, Alabama has passed a law that basically says you cannot hire an assassin (an abortionist) to kill your baby, but you can kill your baby if you “do it yourself.” DIY abortion is not a crime in Alabama. Of course, it would be a crime for you to kill your 13-year-old child or your 40-year-old child, but it is not a crime for you to kill your preborn child. That means the preborn do not have equal protection under the law. According to attorney Bradley Pierce, there are an estimated 3,500 DIY abortions on Alabama soil annually.
This lack of equal protection for the preborn is unjust. It is showing partiality toward those who are born and discrimination against those who are preborn. This is in direct violation of God’s Law: “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial…” (Lev 19:15).
In Wilberforce’s time, there was a law against kidnapping and enslaving white people, but there was not such a law regarding black people. That was an “iniquitous decree” because it showed partiality, and Wilberforce let the magistrates of that day know, “Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees, and the writers who keep writing oppression” (Isa 10:1). In theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s time, there was a law against killing non-Jewish Germans, but there was not a law against killing Jews. That was partiality. In our time in Alabama, there is a law against killing born people, but there is not a law against freely, willingly, knowingly, and intentionally killing preborn people (as long as you do it yourself). That is an iniquitous decree because it shows partiality.
“How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality…? Give justice to the weak and the fatherless” (Ps 82:2-3). Christian, that is what we must say to our magistrates today in Alabama who are practicing partiality by not giving equal protection to the preborn.
For this reason, Rep. Ernie Yarbrough (R-Trinity) is putting forth the first ever bill of equal protection under the law for the preborn in Alabama.
How can you be a modern-day Wilberforce?

You can pray. Pray for our leaders (1 Tim 2:1-2). Pray for “justice [for] the fatherless and the oppressed” (Ps 10:18).
You can inform people that the murder of babies in Alabama (DIY abortion) is not illegal. Do so peacefully, but speak out about this evil. “Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute” (Prov 31:8). If we are doing nothing about the bloodshed in our land, then God is disgusted with our worship (Isa 1:11-15). As Bonhoeffer said: “Only he who cries out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chants.” Are we crying out for the preborn?
If you take a stand for life, prepare to be rejected. “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12). If you speak out, then you will be maligned as evil. It will harm your reputation. But the life of the preborn matters more than our reputations (Matt 5:11-12).
You can speak of God’s Word not only to your family and to your church, but to your civic leaders. “I will also speak of your testimonies before kings” (Ps 119:46). You can tell them that partiality against the preborn is evil. You can tell them to promote equal protection for the preborn. One way that can look is you can tell your state representative to support Rep. Yarbrough’s first ever bill of equal protection under the law for the preborn in Alabama.
You can make this article available to others, encouraging them to act for justice for the preborn. As Chuck Colson put it, “Wilberforce… knew that a private faith that did not act in the face of oppression was no faith at all.”

Allan Bledsoe is a pastor at First Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Prattville, Alabama. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. This article is used with permission of the author.

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The result of yielding to Satan’s temptation is always destruction. But wielding the sword of the Spirit fends off the thoughts and impulses that the enemy plants in our minds to lead us into death. The Word of God brings life.

Author, David Jeremiah observes,
The biblical context for viewing all of life’s events is called spiritual warfare—the age-old conflict between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light….Biblically and practically speaking, we are in a spiritual war. The Christian’s spiritual enemy is not in uniform, and he doesn’t meet us on an identifiable battlefield. He uses ruthless and unconventional tactics such as deceit, deflection, and disguise…. The church of Jesus Christ needs to know its enemies and his strategies. Above all, Christians need to know how to gain victory over this enemy.(The Spiritual Warfare Answer Book).
In this episode, we take a practical look at HOW YO USE the sword of the Spirit to resist thoughts and temptations that seek to entice us off of the path of life and onto the road of destruction. As we continue the series, Winning Spiritual Battles Because We Use Our Spiritual Weapons, we come today to Paul’s admonition to take up… the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Eph 6:17). One of the best things about this weapon is that unlike the others, we actually get to see Jesus using it in Scripture. We’ll dig into a study of Jesus’ combat with Satan, in a moment but lets first get to know a bit about this weapon.
This weapon is the Word of God, which is so powerful for transforming human minds and hearts that it is called “living.” For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  (Heb 4:12-13). As we will see, even Jesus did not battle Satan with his own thoughts but only by quoting Scripture.
The Greek word for sword, MACHAIRA does not describe the swash buckling kind of sword used by Zoro. Rather, it was quite short, more like a dagger. It was used by the Romans in close hand-to-hand combat. This weapon is for personal attacks. This truth is underscored by the Greek word Paul chooses for Word (of God). It is not LOGOS, which connotes broad, general principles. Rather, Paul chooses RHEMA, which refers to specific “utterings.” NT scholar W. E. Vine writes,
The significance of RHEMA as distinct from LOGOS is exemplified in the injunction to “take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” Here the reference is not to the whole Bible as such, but to the individual Scripture passages, which the Spirit brings to our remembrance for use in time of need, a prerequisite being the regular storing of the mind with Scripture (An Expository dictionary of NT Words).
Identifying the word of God as the sword of the Spirit is consistent with what we know about the work of the Holy Spirit. Not only does He indwell Christ-followers so they have the presence of Christ with them at all times (abiding in Christ), the Holy Spirit’s work is to help us overcome our sinful nature and transform our hearts into Christ-like attitudes—love, Joy, peace, patience…etc. So, the Holy Spirit is right inside us to help us when thoughts come into our minds, designed by Satan to lead us away from Christ and his righteous path. He is there to help us recall the right truth in Scripture to combat Satan’s lies. But of course, we can’t recall, what we have never read or committed to memory. Let’s zoom in to the wilderness of Judea and watch Jesus wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
First Temptation: Use your power to command these stones to be bread.
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ (Matthew 4:1-4).
Satan begins the temptation by appealing to Jesus’ power, If you are the son of God use that power to turn stones into bread. What many don’t realize is that Jesus’ hunger after a long fast meant that he was close to death. Those who have practiced long fasts point out that after 6 or 7 days, hunger pains go away. If they have water, a human can fast about 40 days, but when his hunger pangs return, he must eat soon, or he will die. Jesus was being tempted not to have to depend upon his heavenly father, but to use his spiritual power to take care of his own needs. The passage he cites is Deut 8:3. The verse before it provides important context.
And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord (Deuteronomy 8:2-3).
Dependency upon God for your daily bread reflects the humility that is vital for depending upon God’s moral law every day. Jesus refused the temptation to stop depending in humility upon his heavenly father. The first Adam refused to depend upon God to satisfy his hunger for food, failing to trust God’s instruction not to eat of the tree in the middle of the garden. Instead, he allowed the delicious fruit to entice him into rebellion against God. He violated God’s restriction and ate. The first Adam put his physical appetite ahead of obedience to God. The Second Adam, though at the point of dying because of his need for food—refused to take matters into his own hands. He humbled himself depending on God. In quoting Deut 8:3, man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord, Jesus is saying real life comes not just through physical sustenance but also by obedience to God. That is the lesson God wanted to teach the Israelites in the wilderness.
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Sadly, certain Christian leaders accept every gift, however misguided, They also summon loyalty and extravagant or sinful “favors” from fawning but naïve devotees And it is the worst sort of devotion to assist a man who seeks power to build his name or brand, while calling his fiefdom “God’s work.” We may know this without the account of David’s mighty men and their misguided gift. Yet when David disallowed a hyper-personalized form of devotion, it deepens our conviction that distinctions are necessary: It is beautiful to assist a man of God as he does the Father’s work, but foolish serve a mere man and his ordinary human desires. May we have the wisdom to see the difference and to act on it.

Recently, Christians have agonized over accounts of false devotion to talented but corrupt church leaders. In outwardly successful churches and ministries, leaders have covered up sin, blamed victims, and blocked investigations to protect gifted but fatally flawed pastors and their ministries. To correct our mistakes and restore our integrity, we need the whole of Scripture, including a minor but revealing episode in the life of David that can help us distinguish between wise service to God from foolish service to men.
As the author wraps up his life of David, 2 Samuel 23:13-17 recounts an episode of courageous but misdirected devotion. David’s strength, faith, and skill led hundreds of men to attach themselves to him. Among them, Samuel extols thirty “mighty men” and singles out three, Josheb, Eleazar, and Shammah for a grand but misguided venture.
At the time, Saul was king. David had served Saul in battle and at court, but as Saul fell away, he decided that David was a threat and must be destroyed. Saul’s hunt for David forced him to flee to remote desert strongholds. As Saul focused on slaying David, he neglected his kingly tasks and left Israel weak as Philistines pressed deep into Israel. At one point, Philistine soldiers reached the Valley of Rephaim and Bethlehem, David’s hometown, half-way across Israel. This is like Canada invading America and reaching Denver, St. Louis and Washington, D.C. David, perhaps speaking poetically, lamented her plight with a graphic statement of longing “Oh, that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate!” (23:15).
Perhaps that well had sweet water; perhaps it meant “home” for David, but the Philistines, taking land with impunity, now held his hometown. The end of the story shows that David wanted more than water. He wanted to stop hiding and wanted his nation to become strong enough to rout the Philistines from his home.
In their devotion to David, his mighty men, Josheb, Eleazar, and Shammah, took his desire for that water literally. They left camp, probably by the caves of Adullam, crossed ten miles of rugged terrain, risked encounters with armed foes, and then slipped into the city to draw water from the well and bring it to David.
What a gift, purchased with two days’ labor, at the risk of their lives! But when they brought it to David, he refused to drink it.
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