Voiceless

For the voiceless…

Grace and Peace from Our Lord Jesus Christ!

As I write this I do not have much of a voice. My cold began with a sore throat and now has climaxed with laryngitis. At least I hope that is the climax and that the resolution is coming soon. But I know that I will get my voice back.

Of course you know how preachers turn everything into a metaphor of one kind or another and so you are probably expecting this will be the case here too. So as not to disappoint – whenever I think of those who have no voice [the voiceless] I think of those who are the most vulnerable in society. Sometimes we will metaphorically say that the poor have no voice because the rich and powerful ignore them. And there are other examples of people around us to whom many will not listen and who will never have a voice if others do not speak up for them.

One of the best examples that I can think of are children in the womb since a child is unable to speak [voiceless] even for some time after being born. The great Reformer John Calvin once said, “…the unborn, though enclosed in the womb of his mother is already a human being, and it is an almost monstrous crime to rob it of life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than a field, because a man’s house is his most secure place of refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy the unborn in the womb before it has come to light” (Commentary on Exodus 21:22).

Franklin Graham at Rock the Lakes last night also said that abortion is a crime. He said that people respond to him saying, “but it is legal.” And he replies that to God it is murder. He shared about telling a woman the gospel and she prayed to God for forgiveness of her sins and called upon the name of Jesus for salvation. Then she asked him if God could really forgive her of the abortion she had – that it had been haunting her ever since. And Rev. Graham said, “He just did.”

And as the story about the woman seeking forgiveness reminds us: speaking up for those without a voice and sharing the gospel of grace go together. God hears us when we cannot even speak and God wants to reconcile all to Himself and to one another.

In Christ,

Pastor Justin