Responding to Resistance to Reformation

1. RESPONDING to
RESISTANCE to REFORMATION
A presentation by: Dr. Peter Hammond

3. Resisting the Call to Action
From the very beginning, as Africa Christian Action was launched
30 years ago, there were those who resisted the call to action.

4. “You Cannot Legislate Morality!”
“You cannot legislate morality!” insisted many.
However, all legislation enforces some version of morality.

5. Either the state will exercise the wrath of God against sin,
or it will exercise the wrath of man against God and His people.

6. Either legislation protects babies from the violence
and injustice of abortion,

9. or, as we see happening now, legislation will be designed to
penalise and prosecute medical professionals who are
contentious objectors to participating in the taking of innocent life.

10. No Freedom
of Choice to
be Allowed for
Conscientious
Objectors
Ominously, U.N.
propagandist
Mofokeng complains
that despite South
Africa’s “Choice on
Termination of
Pregnancy Act, 1996”
“many women in the
country are denied
access to abortion
services…

11. on the grounds of
moral and religious
beliefs and those of
health providers.
There are only a few
practitioners and
public health facilities
who provide abortion
services .”

12. Evidently, Mofokeng and the U.N. who finances her, do not
tolerate conscientious objectors on moral and religious grounds &
want to criminalise those doctors and nurses and other health
professionals who do not want to pervert their healing profession
by taking innocent lives through the violence of abortion.

13. Serious Threat to
Criminalise Pro-Life Doctors and Nurses
This is an ominous warning of a new concerted effort to not only
stigmatise those countries that seek to protect the most innocent
life of all from the violence and injustice of abortion,

14. but to criminalise Christian and other pro-life doctors
and nurses and other health professionals from their
right to choose to be conscientious objectors
in such a highly controversial matter as abortion.

16. Stand Up and Speak Out for
the Right to Life
Mofokeng urges her readers to “achieve the United Nation’s
sustainable development goals,” by removing all obstructions to,
what she calls, “sexual and reproductive health care,” which is a
euphemistic term for killing pre-born babies.

17. It is absolutely vital that we
speak up for those
who cannot speak for themselves,
that we

18. have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds
of darkness,
but rather expose them.

24. It did not take the “gay rights”
advocates long to move
from demands for “toleration”,
to approval,
to state funding,
to demands for conformity
and then
criminalising of criticism.

25. Freedom of speech and
freedom of conscience
is under fire
on school and
university campuses
which are meant to be
free market places
of ideas where
“iron sharpens iron”.

26. The Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) being forced on
schools at this time is an example of how the situation has so
drastically deteriorated to where pornographic child abuse can
become state mandated, not only in government schools, but
even private “independent” schools!

27. “Christians Should
Not be Involved in Politics!”
“Politics is dirty! Christians should not get involved in politics!”
becomes something of a self-fulfilled prophecy as it keeps
Christians from being salt and light in society.

28. When Christians retreat from social and political concerns, one
can expect the situation to deteriorate even more drastically.
Nappies/diapers are also dirty and therefore need to be changed
frequently. So, it is with political leaders.

29. “Who will rise up for Me against the evildoers? Who will
stand up for Me against the workers of iniquity?” Psalm 94:16

30. “We Are Living in the Last Days!”
“These are the last days! Everything is meant to get worse and
worse in the end times!”

31. By this logic, none of the actions we have taken to save lives and
clean up local communities over the last three decades should
have been done!

32. For as long as I have been a Christian, 44 years, people have
been proclaiming that “we are in the last days” and that there
wasn’t enough time to do what was being proposed.

33. In fact, date setters have been proclaiming this kind of message
for more than 170 years.
We are to occupy until Jesus comes, or calls.

34. When Professor Martin Luther was asked what he would do if he
knew that the Lord would return tomorrow, he replied:
“I would plant a tree today!”

35. The Solution to Selfishness
Selfishness is our greatest enemy.
Therefore, the solution is selflessness, self-sacrifice
& sacrificial service for our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

36. Occupy until He comes, or calls.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Our priority is
to fulfil the Great Commission of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

37. “Just Preach the Gospel!”
“Just preach the Gospel!”
This response has often seemed like a convenient
excuse
for disobedience to the clear commands of Scripture
and an excuse for doing nothing.

38. Do we really believe that Jesus would have us stand passively by
while God-hating pagans exploit women made in the image of
God, to degrade that which God has made to be holy, make public
what God has meant to be private, make common what God has
meant to be special, corrupting young minds and morals and
ruining marriages?

39. “Just preach the Gospel!” has often been used as an excuse to
justify laziness or cowardice. Would God have us stand idly by
while a murderer rips the arms and legs off a baby and crushes its
head?

40. “If you faint in the day of adversity,
your strength is small.
Deliver those who are drawn toward death
and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.
If you say, ‘Surely we did not know this,’
does not He who weighs the hearts consider it?
He who keeps your soul,
does He not know it?
And will He not render to each man
according to his deeds?”
Proverbs 24:10-12

41. Back to the Bible
Which servant of God in the Bible limited himself to
“Just preaching the Gospel?”

42. Was Elijah wrong to confront and expose the pornographic,
child-sacrificing prophets of Baal? (1 Kings 18).

43. Was John the Baptist wrong to have publicly confronted the immorality
of king Herod? (Matthew 14:3-4).

44. Could our Lord have been in error when He confronted the
corruption in the Temple? Why did He overturn the tables and
drive out the money-changers (Mark 11:15-16)?
Why did our Lord not “just preach the Gospel!”

45. Sins of Omission
The Parable of the Good Samaritan with its “Go and do
likewise” (Luke 10:26-37), the coming Day of Judgment when our
Lord warned us that we will be judged on the basis of what we did

46. to care for the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked,

47. visit prisoners and welcome strangers (Matthew 25:31-46),

48. confirms that we are obligated to do far more than
“Just preach the Gospel!”

49. In Matthew 25, our Lord makes it clear that,
on the Day of Judgment, we will be judged for sins of omission,
for the good things that we failed to do.

50. True Christianity is Love in Action
In James 1:27, we read that the Biblical definition of true religion
before God is: “to look after orphans and widows in their
distress and to keep ourselves from being polluted
by the world.”

51. Seek First the Kingdom of God
We are called to be “the salt of the earth.” Matthew 5:13.

52. We have been taught to pray:
“Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your Name.
Your Kingdom come.
Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven…”
Matthew 6:9-10

53. Love God and Love your Neighbour
It was love for God that motivated us to stand up
against the legalisation of blasphemy.

54. It was love for our neighbour that motivated us to organise outreaches
outside abortion clinics…

55. It was love for our neighbour that motivated us to organise outreaches
outside escort agencies and brothels.

56. It was in obedience to the Scripture: “have no fellowship with
the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them.”
Ephesians 5:11, that led us to march to parliament

57. and protest the legalisation of pornography

58. and attempts to legalise modern-day slavery, human trafficking

59. and prostitution.

60. “Who will rise up
for Me
against the evildoers?
Who will stand up
for Me
against the workers
of iniquity?”
Psalm 94:16

61. “Does not wisdom cry out and understanding
lift up her voice? She takes her stand on the
top of the high hill, beside the way, where the
paths meet. She cries out by the gates, at the
entry of the city, at the entrance of the doors.”
Proverbs 8:1-3

62. “Those from among you shall build the old waste places;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations
and you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach,
the Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.”
Isaiah 58:12

63. “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my
beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord,
knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
1 Corinthians 15:57-58

69. For More Information:
Contact
Christian Action Network
Tel: (021) 689 4481
Web: www.christianaction.org.za
E-mail: info@christianaction.org.za