1) To both receive ministry and to minister (to the public), aided by the Holy Spirit.
If we the church accept the ministry God intends for His sons and daughters, He will empower us to witness truth to motorists and pedestrians and to do so with humility, compassion, and conviction.
2) To provide God a witness to anoint and use to save lives and change hearts in each local area.
Life Chain is only a first step into pro-life activism, but it is an important step that tests our hearts and helps prepare us to be willing vessels who aid and protect the defenseless among us. Such is the story of the Good Samaritan and the story of Christ’s called-out bride—the humble sheep who meet urgent needs in Matthew 25. Let us rediscover the cardinal virtues mercy and justice. Their defense of our homeland clearly exceeds that of our military arsenal.
3) To join a national prayer chain that seeks God’s forgiveness and intervention. “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray…” [2 Chron. 7:14].
Consider the moral decay today in church, government, academia, and commerce. Consider the attack on traditional (Biblical) marriage. Consider the epidemics of pornography, sexual disease, cohabitation, illegitimacy, divorce. All are linked to abortion and the innocent blood of its victims, our fellow citizens. If God used a catastrophic civil war to end institutional slavery in America, what might He use to end the legalized mutilation of our preborn neighbors? Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton have reduced America to one of the world’s most violent nations. Let us who call Christ our Lord confess our destructive, unwitting denial of a holocaust in our homeland and then defend earnestly “those led away to slaughter.”
4) To better understand the impact abortion is having on our country and why the church must end it.
The church can defeat legalized abortion and its spirit allies, but to do so, we must move beyond the “abortion issue” to valuing preborn humanity and their progeny. Our luke-warmness toward their brutal deaths grieves our Lord, who assures us He “avenges blood” and does not forget “the cry of the afflicted” [Psalm 9:12]. Of Judah God declared before sending them into captivity, “They do not plead the cause of the fatherless to win it” [Jere. 5:28]. Has not Satan stolen our compassion and urgency for the unborn?
5) To move the church, under pastoral leadership, from the pews to the “city gates” and “marketplace.”
For 43 years (since Colorado and California legalized abortion in 1967), we the church have occupied comfortable sanctuaries and welcomed détente, while a small percentage of worshippers labored unsuccessfully for a breakthrough to end the killing. Thus the essentiality of pastoral exhortation and leadership. Wrote Afro-American pastor Clenard Childress, Jr., in No Shepherds Cry: “The pew cannot do what the pulpit is supposed to do.” When King David stayed home from war (2 Sam. 11), Childress explained, evil forces prevailed. Legal abortion will not end until the shepherds resolve to defend the endangered lambs and equip themselves for battle, spiritual and cultural.
6) To honor our youngest fellow citizens who, most often, have perished alone, within blocks of multiple church altars.
Let us acknowledge our replication of the failed German church under Nazism. Let us seek and cultivate heart for 55 million surgically aborted U.S. and Canadian preborns (many others have died from chemical contraceptives) who, like European Jews, had only the church to rely on.
7) To help build a resolute army of Christians who are pro-life in both word and deed.
Let us engage the enemy, boldly and unashamed, until the curse of legal abortion is swept from our land and America and Canada again provide security and freedom for every citizen, born and unborn.
This article is reprinted with permission from National Life Chain. Annually, on the first Sunday in October, Life Chain invites the churches in each city and town across North America to stand on a designated local sidewalk and pray for 90 minutes, while holding one of the following approved pro-life sign messages:
• ABORTION KILLS CHILDREN
• JESUS FORGIVES AND HEALS
• ADOPTION: THE LOVING OPTION
• LORD, FORGIVE US AND OUR NATION
• ABORTION HURTS WOMEN
• PRAY TO END ABORTION
• LIFE—THE FIRST INALIENABLE RIGHT
For more information, visit nationallifechain.org or call 530-674-5068.
