Roger Nicole’s Letter to Justice Blackmun 1994

There are many things that bring joy to a pastor’s heart, but one of those is the people you get to pastor and be involved in their lives.  In 1994 I had a couple join my church in Florida that was a first for me.  Roger & Annette Nicole became members.  When I introduced them that Sunday morning, I said, “it is not often that a pastor gets to have one of his theological heroes in his church.”  And Roger was, and is, that.  Today he is in his mid-90s and still a great joy when I get to see him.  Roger is probably the leading Baptist authority on the Atonement of Christ, having written extensively on the subject.

In 1994 Roger wrote a letter to Justice Harry Blackmun, on the occasion of the Justice’s retirement from the Supreme Court of the United States.  You may remember that it was Blackmun who wrote the infamous majority decision in Roe v. Wade.  I want to share that letter with you today.  Don’t miss the “P.S.”

April 13, 1994

Mr. Justice Harry A. Blackmun
United States Supreme Court
Washington, D.C.

Your Honor:

The Orlando Sentinel reports that in the prospect of your impending retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court you are wondering what you will be remembered for.

To my mind nothing else that you ever have done can approximate the impact of your support of the majority opinion of the Court in the case of Roe vs. Wade.

This has opened the door to millions of abortions…for the sake of expediency or selfish motives. It has encouraged millions of women and thousands of physicians to participate in this murderous course.

In 4 B.C. Herod the Great ordered the killing of perhaps a few dozens of babies, but his name remains famous for this “massacre of the innocents” (Matthew 2:16).

In the Civil War of 1861-65, one of the bloodiest on record in terms of the size of the armies involved, there were perhaps close to 500,000 casualties. But Roe vs. Wade has made already 30 million victims since 1973, and this number grows every day.

In World War II, the USA suffered somewhat more than 400,000 deaths due to the conflict: this is only 1/75th of the number of the abortion hecatomb*.

In the Viet Nam hostilities there were some 60,000 fatalities. You would need 500 Viet Nam walls, enough to encircle the whole of D.C., to record those put to death by abortion.

The infamous holocaust engineered by the Nazis brought death to some 6,000,000 Jews and other innocent people. The name of Hitler is inextricably associated with this monstrous atrocity. Yet Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Treblinka and others together exterminated only one-fifth of those whose life was snuffed out before birth by Roe vs. Wade.

The Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor cased the death of 2,300 Americans, and President Roosevelt, who surely cannot be accused of being politically right wing, stigmatized this occasion by calling it “a day of infamy.” Now two “decades of infamy” have cost our nation a loss as great as 13,000 “Pearl Harbors.”

Rest assured, therefore, your Honor, that this legacy of yours will ever be remembered and that your name will be associated with it. And unless you repent, when you appear before the Supreme Court of God you may well hear the verdict, “Your brothers; [and sisters’] blood cries out to me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10).

Sincerely,
Roger Nicole, Ph.D. (Harvard)

P.S. If your parents had practiced what you believe, you might have been aborted, and the United States might have been spared this abomination. If my parents had practiced it, you would not receive this letter.

* hecatomb = the sacrifice or slaughter of many victims.

(HT: Bayly Blog)

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Outstanding Thoughts from Ray Ortlund

This is rich!!! I mean really, really rich.  Please read and contemplate carefully!!

What does it mean to “accept Jesus”?
Ray Ortlund

“You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.” 1 Thessalonians 1:9

You and I are not integrated, unified, whole persons. Our hearts are multi-divided. There is a board room in every heart. Big table. Leather chairs. Coffee. Bottled water. Whiteboard. A committee sits around the table. There is the social self, the private self, the work self, the sexual self, the recreational self, the religious self, and others. The committee is arguing and debating and voting. Constantly agitated and upset. Rarely can they come to a unanimous, wholehearted decision. We tell ourselves we’re this way because we’re so busy with so many responsibilities. The truth is, we’re just divided, unfocused, hesitant, unfree.

That kind of person can “accept Jesus” in either of two ways. One way is to invite him onto the committee. Give him a vote too. But then he becomes just one more complication. The other way to “accept Jesus” is to say to him, “My life isn’t working. Please come in and fire my committee, every last one of them. I hand myself over to you. Please run my whole life for me.” That is not complication; that is salvation.

“Accepting Jesus” is not just adding Jesus. It is also subtracting the idols.