We arrived in the midst of light rain where 45-50
people were gathered in the public square of the St. Clair
County Courthouse for an observance of the 56th
National Day of Prayer. It is a public monument to
approximately 40,000 inhabitants in
Belleville
,
Illinois
. This prayer service was hosted by Pastor James Slone of
St. Matthew United Methodist Church.
We carried two 5x10 ft Scripture signs along with two
graphic signs. We walked up to the stage of this event and
stood so that the crowd was able to view the signs head-on.
Noticeably, you could recognize the pastors in the crowd as
their faces were the most grimaced. We listened to several
pastors take turns at the podium requesting prayer for
certain ailments affecting our nation.
As the pastors kept coming up and asking for prayers,
they kept asking to be blessed. They continued to pray for
God’s blessings instead of repenting of our sins. One
certain plague that besets our nation and courses through
our streets that was left out of the prayers was the mention
of abortion.
The service took all of approximately 20 minutes and
even had a brass ensemble band which played a couple of
songs. But the one major ingredient that was missing from
this prayerful gathering was true repentance, and noticeably
was the omission of the sin of abortion.
The
American
Church
refuses to recognize the blight on our nation and that is
the curse of bloodguilt. We are not worshipping God; we’re
worshipping ourselves. We have become our own gods.
They ended the service with everyone singing a stanza
of God Bless
America
. I was so reminded of that little tract by Penny Lea where,
while the boxcars drove behind the churches in Nazi Germany,
the churchgoers sang a little louder to drown out the cries
of those who were about to be slaughtered. It was nauseating
to listen to fellow Christians singing God Bless
America
while they are looking at the face of a dead baby very much
like the babies being murdered just 20 minutes away from
this square at the local abortion mill.
We were respectful of their service, but as soon as
they closed with their God Bless
America
song, we stood on the stage and announced that we were here
to deliver God’s mail and we called for the pastors’
attention. The pastors stopped in their tracks and we told
them that we had some literature for them.
The pastors did accept the literature and give their
various excuses explaining their absence at the abortion
mill. Others in the crowd told us what a fine job we were
doing and to “keep up the good work.” But we told them, “Faith
without works is dead.” James
2:26. They
need to put feet on their prayers. God will never bless our
nation as long as we allow the slaughter of 40-50 babies a
week at our local deathcamp in
Granite City
,
Illinois
.
One man told us that his wife did pro-life work and
Angela said to the man, “The
problem in our nation is that we aren’t confronting the
immorality. Rather we’re embracing it and we wonder why we
have shootings like the Virginia Tech tragedy. As long as we
stay on this course of omission, why should we be surprised
when there are more school shootings, shootings at theaters,
and shootings at malls?” which this local community
has seen a lot of lately.
We told him that our schools are shoving evolution
down our kids’ throats and telling them that they are
their own gods and that it is ok to weed out the weakest and
most vulnerable in our society, that it is the survival of
the fittest. When you sow bloodshed in the womb, you are
going to reap it in the streets. The man nodded in agreement
with us, shook our hands, and thanked us again.
We passed out the tract titled “Christian Viewpoint
of Abortion” Angela had to run after the only African
American pastor there and handed him the tract and said, “Pastor,
we must speak out against the sin of abortion. Over 60% of
the women going into our local abortion mill are black
American.” And he corrected me and said, “We
do speak out against abortion.” And he walked away.
This was a great opportunity, a mission field to
witness to a lot of hurting people as we noticed this was a
courthouse. A few people were milling around us and our
signs. We told them that it was the National Day of Prayer
and asked them if they needed prayer. One young black
American man told us that his grandma is suffering from
colon cancer. We asked him her name and began praying and
interceding for her for God to restore her body and rid it
of the cancer.
We walked over to an older coupled that looked worn
and tired and asked if they needed prayer for anything and
the woman said that they had financial needs and health
needs. Again we prayed and interceded for them. They thanked
us.
We were reminded that this was a great opportunity to
glorify our Lord. Most sinners didn’t come to Jesus. Jesus
went to them.
We loaded our signs up in the van and headed over to
the
Midwest
’s largest baby dumping mill where midnight abortions were
about to begin. Throughout the night, 4 precious babies’
lives were spared. Alleluia!
Be encouraged~ Angela