We know that the adversary prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Where there are no visible battles, the evil one is advancing, and the church has simply failed to fight. When the church takes up its spiritual weapons and marches into the battle, we must be prepared for the increasing hostility of the enemy.
In 2012, Justin Reeder, a young businessman, realized that abortion was the leading cause of death in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. “That was a shocker for me – a major shocker,” he said. “And that’s really what Satan wants. He wants to keep it out of sight, out of mind, where no one’s talking about it.”
Reeder not only started talking about it. He started doing something about it. He started the Love Life movement that has unified the body of Christ to save lives. Well over 100 local churches have come together as one and engaged in warfare. See AFA Journal article here.
Since 2015, the churches have alternated Saturdays walking through the neighborhood that houses one of the largest abortion clinics in the Southeast, the Preferred Women's Health Center. The groups pray, sing, worship, and lovingly offer help, in a wide array of life-affirming options, to the mothers entering the clinic. Many women have heard the pleas from inside the center and changed their minds.
As a result, abortion numbers have gone down – way down! The number of abortions taking place on Saturdays has decreased by 70 percent.
We wouldn’t expect the devourer to lie down and take it, would we?
All hell has broken loose in the city. But the church in Charlotte has stood on the promise of Jesus who said the gates of hell will not prevail against it (Matthew 15:18).
Charlotte City Council has been doggedly working to silence the voice of truth, clearly expressing its goal to strengthen and enforce noise buffer regulations at the PWHC as a “tool” to deal with the “ongoing issue.”
One councilman, Ed Driggs, has confronted the council about the biased nature of the move to silence the groups praying and reaching out to the mothers entering the PWHC on Latrobe Street.
“The ordinance as proposed is aimed at the Latrobe protesters, and it was pretending to be something else,” Driggs later said.
Though more than 500 people were there to oppose the ordinance, the council appears set on moving forward. The final vote on the noise buffer ordinance that would eliminate the ability to use voice amplifiers within 200 feet of the abortion clinic(s) will take place on June 24, 2019.
By aligning itself with the PWHC abortion clinic, the city is also supporting Ron Virmani, an abortionist with an extensive history of misconduct, including rape charges. He has worked at the PWHC clinic for years and was recently caught on tape shouting, “Rape them and send them here!” as he pulled into the parking lot. See the actual video here.
The city is more concerned about the “noise” the women encounter when entering the clinic than their actual safety as they subject themselves to the “care” of this man.
And more recently, Planned Parenthood has announced its intention to open a full-service abortion clinic in Charlotte’s downtown area. Somebody has to have access to all those women who are otherwise choosing life, right?
In light of all that has taken place with Charlotte City Council over the past two years,” said Carl Ubinas, Love Life spokesman, “the correlation and coordination between Planned Parenthood and Charlotte City Council seem evident.”
Should the church silently sit at home and allow it? Not according to a large group of black women who participated in a public press conference organized by Douglass Leadership Institute and the pro-life arm of the Church of God in Christ.
“When I heard about how Planned Parenthood is trying to take up shop here in this city, I had to come and help you expose Planned Parenthood for who and what they really are,” said Pamela Wooden. “Planned Parenthood is a genocidal organization that targets black women and profits from lying and killing innocent children.”
While many churches and pastors remain silent concerning the holocaust among us, others are taking a bold stand.
Statements widely attributed to protestant reformer Martin Luther certainly apply:
“If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity. Where the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battle-field besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he flinches at that one point.”
The ugliness of the abortion industry and the lying murderer behind it (Satan himself) has increasingly shown itself evident. The battle is truly raging!
It has already been a long, hard fight for the pro-lifers in Charlotte. But it is worth the fight. No one said war is easy.
