God's Input

By Michael G. Mickey

The Associated Press is reporting, in part:

"Leaders of the country's largest Lutheran denomination have moved toward a more welcoming view of homosexuality."

Imagine that. There's a lot of that going on these days, isn't there? Everywhere we turn, whether the subject matter is morality, spirituality or both, the news is bad, almost without exception.

The above is a prime example of what I'm referring to. The Holy Bible couldn't be more clear than it is concerning the sinful nature of the homosexual lifestyle and yet the Lutherans referred to above have decided to overlook God's Word in favor of political correctness. God help us, especially the Lutherans!

The same can be said of the Obama administration's latest push to get ObamaCare passed into law. Reportedly, the newest strategy, set to begin in early September, is going to focus on propagandizing the president's socialistic healthcare reform bill to make it appear that the moral thing for us to do as a nation is to support what most everyone of any credibility, even a member of the European Parliament who is neither a Republican or Democrat, is telling us is going to lead to the rationing of healthcare. What will that result in? Our most needy, the elderly and the very young, being the ones most likely to be denied treatment once rationing begins. That's quite moral, huh?

The purely scientific logic that will potentially result in medical attention being denied to a prematurely born infant, for example, is a preemie is of less value to invest in than a generally healthy 12-year-old who needs a similar life-saving procedure. Similarly, a 70 year-old in need of a kidney transplant would be of less value for the government to invest its healthcare money into than a 38 year-old needing the same procedure. The bottom line, folks? If Obamacare is passed into law, the decisions concerning whose life is going to be saved and whose isn't is going to be all about the mighty dollar, not anything else. Period. In one of the examples I just used, the 38 year-old is of more value to the government because he is still young enough to be an active taxpayer in the work force, an asset. The 70-year-old man, however? If he's a retiree, well, his best days are already behind him if you get my drift. But don't take my word for it.

Martin Feldstein, currently a Harvard professor and formerly chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan, wrote the following, in part, in the Wall Street Journal recently:

Although administration officials are eager to deny it, rationing health care is central to President Barack Obama’s health plan. The Obama strategy is to reduce health costs by rationing the services that we and future generations of patients will receive.

And...

The president has emphasized the importance of limiting services to "health care that works." To identify such care, he provided more than $1 billion in the fiscal stimulus package to jump-start Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) and to finance a federal CER advisory council to implement that idea. That could morph over time into a cost-control mechanism of the sort proposed by former Sen. Tom Daschle, Mr. Obama's original choice for White House health czar. Comparative effectiveness could become the vehicle for deciding whether each method of treatment provides enough of an improvement in health care to justify its cost.

In the British national health service, a government agency approves only those expensive treatments that add at least one Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) per £30,000 (about $49,685) of additional health-care spending. If a treatment costs more per QALY, the health service will not pay for it. The existence of such a program in the United States would not only deny lifesaving care but would also cast a pall over medical researchers who would fear that government experts might reject their discoveries as "too expensive."

Already our government has come up with a QALY-like curve they will use to determine who qualifies for medical treatment and who doesn't, as well as who will be prioritized to receive treatment first in a rationing scenario - and a rationing scenario is the guaranteed outcome of Obama's healthcare reform plan! My understanding of this QALY-like curve is your chances of receiving life-saving treatment, even during rationing, is optimal if you're between the ages of 15 and 40. If you are aged outside of those areas, however? My advice is to pray you don't get sick.

Morally and spiritually, the United States of America is skidding to its demise, in my humble opinion. Barring a genuine revival taking place in this nation, I fear we've passed the point of no return when churches can look right at their bibles and overrule the words contained inside purely in the interest of political correctness, not to mention when our government begins establishing the value of a human being's life based on a curve drawn on a graph chart!

Of interest to me, from the Associated Press story linked above, were the second and third paragraphs. They read (emphasis added mine):

Delegates of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting in Minneapolis, approved a "social statement on human sexuality" that acknowledges differing views on homosexuality. It says the ELCA is strong enough to accommodate such differences.

Shortly before the vote, strong winds toppled trees outside the convention center and damaged the steeple of a Lutheran church next door, prompting a speaker at the convention to quip, "We trust that the weather is not a commentary on our work."

To the speaker who quipped of their hope that God damaging the steeple on their church and toppling trees outside of the convention center where they were approving a "social statement on human sexuality" wasn't a commentary on their work, I would say, "The mere fact you would say you hoped the weather outside wasn't a divine commentary on your work is prima facie evidence you fully knew that what you and your colleagues were doing inside that convention center was making a mockery of God's Word!"

Were the whirling winds outside the convention center a message from God, some input from Him concerning what they were doing? I have to believe so, especially in light of the fact someone literally and vocally pondered it as a possibility, a tacit admission of guilt concerning the apostasy taking place there! It sounds to me like the Lord got their attention, for a moment at least.

What is God's input going to be concerning ObamaCare, if any, if it becomes the law of the land? I don't know but it is my understanding that ObamaCare is going to, in all likelihood, result in even more taxpayer money going toward abortion, taxpayer funding of gender-swapping surgeries becoming commonplace, and the denial of medical treatment to people who otherwise would've received it had our present medical system been left intact.

Some people say that America's healthcare system and the politics surrounding it isn't anything the Church should have an interest in taking a position on. From my perspective, I don't see how we can afford not to given the ramifications of it should it become a reality. The notion that our nation's elderly, even those who are retired and feeble, wouldn't be considered a vital asset to our nation under ObamaCare makes me ill, quite frankly.

Matthew 14:14: And Jesus went forth, and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick.

Compassion for the sick is in keeping with God's Word and we should do everything within our power to see that our nation's liberal leadership not trample that guiding principle underfoot! And lastly, we need to keep a watchful eye on our churches, no matter the denomination, and stand against everything that carries them, if only slightly, from remaining obedient to God's Word. If we don't do these things, God's input into these matters may be less than pleasant for all of us to endure, a few trees being toppled being the least of our worries and rightly so.

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!

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