Sunday Message- Dr Martin's Rule #4

I have a story for you this week about Dr Martin's Rule #4.  What, you say?  Where is 3?  It'll come up- as well as the attached-to this-story Rule #5 in due time.  But right now, I want to set the backdrop on how rule #5 came my way.

Last week, Congress decided that a bill protecting a 20-week old fetus from being aborted, on the basis of scientific proof that a fetus at that moment of development feels pain, was not right.

Apparently this "mass of tissue" isn't alive enough to prick the consciences of 46 congressmen who are less morally convicted by doing the right thing and more intimidated by people like this:

Now this is NOT about to become a post on the politics of abort, on the minority groups that steer policy in a land SUPPOSEDLY under majority rule, or an attack per se on militant feminism.  What it is about is the facts as God sees them- and why some people don't see them that way.  This is just one case.

In my opinion, the facts as God sees them in this case include:

A baby is a baby at conception.

13 For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;[b]
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them. (Ps 139)

And that there are people like the ones in the protest above who are simply bent on evil.  Nothing else can explain demanding full-term abort rights or shooting down this ban.  I'm not talking about you who, under a certain circumstance might weigh your options early on.  To you abortion might be a simple sin, a terrible one, but a mistake- and we all make those, as I will get to.  Evil is activists who only see it as part of an agenda and give no feeling to babies or mothers, and politicians who cannot distinguish right from wrong, or don't care to.  Now, let me change the paradigm.


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The past month, David Jeremiah has been focusing on giving to the Church.  As I have mentioned, I was called to tithe recently, (well, I paid attention recently) and this week Jeremiah brought up the question, "Do you tithe from gross or net?"  Now I don't get a paper pay stub; to look at mine, I have to log into Kronos, and any of you that have to deal with Kronos prolly know what a pain-in-the-butt THAT is.  So I, without thinking, had just been looking at my direct deposit from my credit union. 

Here, Satan interjected- and God allowed him to, for a reason.  We recently got our quarterly bonus, and we get a paper print for that- and it was still in my pocket.  I pulled it out- even though I knew what it said- and quickly calculated FIFTY percent, instead of ten.  (Thus, I have rule #4 nicknamed for my benefit "the 50% rule".)  Which started my mind into a panic- how could I give gross if it only leaves me thus and so, nothing left for anything else, I don't believe...


And at those last three words, I stopped.  I turned the radio off.  I said to myself, "What promise has God not kept?  What trouble has He not guided me through?  How DARE I say, 'I don't believe' about ANYTHING?"

And then I pulled the stub out of my pocket again.  And calculated TEN percent.  And said, "Chris, you moron."

And understood that the thing that ties the opening story and my flub together is Dr Martin's Rule #4:

The only way to overcome Satanic ignorance is by seeing things God's way.


It was only when I prayed, reminded myself of all the benefits of obedience- including in this case, being able to do third-grade math.  And I soon saw the connection between the two stories, and all the stories out there where society is trying to pull away from morality and decency under the guises of "freedom" and "tolerance".

For example, I had to shake my head on a Catholic FB friend's post on the abortion subject.  A woman was arguing with him over the Church's stand.  She honest-to-Bob said this, which I am paraphrasing in lieu of copying her posts.  "I AM a Catholic, I AM Pro-Life.  That said, I believe in a woman's FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE on the subject." (Emphasis mine.)  Several people tried to explain to her that you can't have it both ways- either abortion is both murder and a sin, or it isn't.  Either you believe in the tenets of the Church, or you believe sin is an allowable choice.  And a couple defended her.  But NO one could convince her she was sitting on top of a razor and not a fence.

Without God's guidance, you can talk yourself into false logic such as this.  If you find yourself at odds with the Church, or with God, over something- perhaps you need to give such a blind spot to Him, and see what opens up.  And THAT'S what this one is about.