{"id":402,"date":"2014-02-12T04:50:38","date_gmt":"2014-02-12T11:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/144.208.71.131\/~shinethru\/palmquists\/blog\/?p=402"},"modified":"2015-02-20T12:22:23","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T19:22:23","slug":"survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/survival\/","title":{"rendered":"The key to our survival"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this <a title=\"Video: The key to the survival of our cities -- and our nation\" href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/LCZGsKxRrVc\" target=\"_blank\">13 minute video<\/a>, Tim Palmquist (flanked by two City Council members) speaks at the Victorville March for Life, which was held on January 19, 2014 in front of the new Victorville Planned Parenthood mega center.\u00a0 (For the best experience, please consider watching the video with captions turned on.)<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LCZGsKxRrVc\" height=\"315\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The wide spectrum of points covered in this brief pep talk include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Why there is hope for the future of our cities and nation<\/li>\n<li>Why pastors can&#8217;t dismiss their responsibility to confront abortion deaths<\/li>\n<li>Why God will not only judge individuals, but also cities &#8212; and churches!<\/li>\n<li>Why it is so dangerous to look at abortion as a &#8220;personal&#8221; issue of &#8220;choice&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>How we have been a part of changing the landscape of the pro-life movement<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why politicians can&#8217;t dismiss their responsibility to stand against abortion deaths<\/li>\n<li>How many pastors are disobeying the Gospel by focusing upon the &#8220;gospel&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Why it is so harmful for us to focus on just babies or just mothers<\/li>\n<li>Why the Human Life Ordinance is not dead<\/li>\n<li>Why we can willingly face defeat<\/li>\n<li>Why those who &#8220;march for life&#8221; have a bigger responsibility than those who don&#8217;t<\/li>\n<li>Why the pro-life movement may be the key to the survival of our city, state, nation, and church<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In addition, Tim mentions some practical pro-life resources the Palmquists have been helping to develop.<\/p>\n<p>Here is a transcript of Tim&#8217;s talk:<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m so encouraged to see you all here today.\u00a0 I think this is a great crowd.\u00a0 I&#8217;m thankful to see all of you are willing to come out here on a Sunday afternoon to take a stand for life.<\/p>\n<p>Some of you might be thinking &#8220;there should be thousands of people here &#8212; there should be tens of thousands of people here.&#8221;\u00a0 You&#8217;re right!\u00a0 But you can accomplish alot even though your numbers are small.\u00a0 Just by being here you are letting your neighbors know that you intend to continue standing up against those like Planned Parenthood &#8212; those who promote the view that the lives of the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society should be disposable at whim.<\/p>\n<p>But as Pope John Paul II said, &#8220;A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members, and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yes, there will come a time when our society, and our communities, will face the Judge.\u00a0 Jesus made it clear that God will not only judge individuals but also nations and cities.\u00a0 But the Bible is also clear that He will hold back the judgment for the sake of a remnant, a small fraction of individuals in a city who remain faithful to God.<\/p>\n<p>History reveals that a faithful remnant (like you) can have a huge impact.\u00a0 Our nation itself would not be here today were it not for the faithful minority of patriots who stood for freedom, while many of their countrymen just stayed neutral or even remained loyal to the King.\u00a0 Those who fought against slavery were also a vocal minority, with many powerful opponents, and it was that vocal minority that moved Lincoln to action.\u00a0 When the great civil rights marches happened in our nation, many people stayed home and watched on TV.\u00a0 But even if they turned off their TV, the message of those who took to the streets was heard loud and clear.\u00a0 So what you are doing here today matters greatly.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_431\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/DSCF4376_sm.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-431\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-431\" alt=\"After Tim spoke, this man came up to thank him.  With tears in his eyes, he explained that for a decade he had been the manager of the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in the building which is now occupied by Planned Parenthood.  He told me how much it hurt him when he heard the news that Planned Parenthood was moving into the building where he had so many memories of happy children.\" src=\"http:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/DSCF4376_sm-300x265.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"265\" srcset=\"http:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/DSCF4376_sm-300x265.jpg 300w, http:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/DSCF4376_sm-1024x906.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/DSCF4376_sm.jpg 1631w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-431\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">After Tim spoke, this man came up to thank him. With tears in his eyes, he explained that for a decade he had been the manager of the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in the building which is now occupied by Planned Parenthood. He told me how much it hurt him when he heard the news that Planned Parenthood was moving into the building where he had so many memories of happy children.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Even those of us who don&#8217;t live near Victorville are concerned about what&#8217;s happening here.\u00a0 We were shocked along with you when we learned that Planned Parenthood intended to move into the old Chuck E. Cheese building here &#8212; the place where children had years of fun.\u00a0 And the news of the boldness of your public officials &#8212; like Mayor Ryan McEachron and Councilwoman Angela Valles [who also spoke at this event] &#8212; that was such an encouragement to so many of us.<\/p>\n<p>When we learned in Bakersfield that Planned Parenthood was building a similar mega center there, we too encouraged our city leaders to take a stand.\u00a0 We asked them to pass a Human Life Ordinance, which was basically putting into code what the city could do to protect human life, as spelled out in its (City) Charter and in the (State) Constitution.\u00a0 A few months ago, another city-based effort took place in Albuquerque.<\/p>\n<p>Through these efforts, the landscape of the pro-life movement is beginning to change, as more and more pro-life leaders are understanding that a city-by-city effort is the wave of the future for our movement.<\/p>\n<p>The question &#8220;what can a city do about abortion&#8221;\u00a0 has not yet been totally answered.\u00a0 But thanks in part to you and your leaders, the question is finally being carefully considered.<\/p>\n<p>It is clear that cities often have the right to restrict and regulate activities which might otherwise be legal, and to protect their citizens against things they might face in other cities.\u00a0 But sometimes bad laws are beyond local control.\u00a0 There are higher jurisdictions to consider.\u00a0 The city is within a state, and within a nation, and the laws of these higher jurisdictions can really impact the laws of a city.<\/p>\n<p>As Christians, we know that the question of jurisdiction ultimately settles in God&#8217;s favor.\u00a0 Jesus said &#8220;all authority in heaven and on earth&#8221; is given to Him, so the leaders of our state and nation who pass pro-abortion laws will someday need to answer to God.<\/p>\n<p>Now on a human level, some might say that all of these city-based pro-life efforts so far have failed: here in Victorville, in Bakersfield, and in Albuquerque (where Planned Parenthood spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, they were so concerned that it might go through there).<\/p>\n<p>I suppose those type of people might have said that Jesus also failed when He died on the cross, but we know better.\u00a0 We know that it was in fact His greatest victory, and that the resurrection was just around the corner.\u00a0 As we serve our suffering servant, Jesus Christ, we too must willingly face defeat, knowing that He has already established the path to ultimate victory.<\/p>\n<p>At every step of this battle, we must surrender to Him, understanding that this is really His battle and that we are simply tools in His capable hands.\u00a0 We need to follow the example of Jesus&#8217; mother, Mary, who said &#8220;yes&#8221; to God.\u00a0 That&#8217;s our job, to say &#8220;yes&#8221; to Him, and to cooperate with Him.<\/p>\n<p>But in view of the difficulties of dealing with abortion on a city level, it&#8217;s not surprising when a city shies away from dealing with abortion.\u00a0 Many people &#8212; including many\u00a0 &#8220;conservative&#8221; leaders &#8212; really just want the whole issue to go away.<\/p>\n<p>Abortion is a hot potato.\u00a0 Everybody wants to pass it off on someone else.\u00a0 Some pastors want to pass it to the politicians: they say &#8220;that&#8217;s just a political issue; it&#8217;s not up to us, it&#8217;s up to the President; it&#8217;s up to the Supreme Court.&#8221;\u00a0 (That&#8217;s what they have told me personally.)<\/p>\n<p>Some politicians want to pass the buck to the religious leaders, saying &#8220;that&#8217;s a religious issue, that&#8217;s an issue for the pastors.&#8221; Or perhaps they want to pass it to the doctors, saying &#8220;that&#8217;s just a medical issue.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Or worst of all, they want to pass it off on a vulnerable woman, saying &#8220;it&#8217;s a personal issue.&#8221;\u00a0 You know what that&#8217;s like? That&#8217;s like leaving a mother and a baby drowning in the middle of the ocean as a luxurious cruise ship passes on by.\u00a0 They both need our help, but our society just lets them drown, telling ourselves &#8212; patting ourselves on the back &#8212; saying &#8220;it&#8217;s her choice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If you make a &#8220;choice&#8221; to jump off a cruise ship, they turn it around.\u00a0 It doesn&#8217;t matter if they miss the next port.\u00a0 Usually they can&#8217;t save the person, but they do try.\u00a0 But our society just says &#8220;it&#8217;s her choice; let them drown.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Abortion crosses all of these boundaries (political-medical-religious-personal).\u00a0 It&#8217;s all of those, because abortion is a <em>people<\/em> issue.\u00a0 Yes, the mother is a person, and we must value and protect her life.\u00a0 But the baby is also a person &#8212; an innocent party in a difficult situation.\u00a0 Too many of us, even within the pro-life movement, want to choose to focus only on the baby or choose to focus only on the mother.\u00a0 We can&#8217;t do that.\u00a0 We have to focus on both of them.\u00a0 We must choose to love them both, because they are both precious to God.<\/p>\n<p>Issues like abortion that impact people <em>are<\/em> religious, and they <em>are<\/em> political.<\/p>\n<p>What kind of pastor ignores the needs of <em>people<\/em> in his community?\u00a0 What kind of politician ignores the needs of <em>people<\/em> in his community?<\/p>\n<p>True, the cries of the babies being killed may be silent &#8212; but God hears their cries, and He will judge.\u00a0 He will judge nations, and He will judge cities.\u00a0 And, He will also judge churches.\u00a0 (You read that in the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation.)<\/p>\n<p>When pastors say they don&#8217;t want to discuss abortion because they want to &#8220;focus on the Great Commission,&#8221; they want to &#8220;bring people to Jesus,&#8221; they seem to forget what Jesus Himself actually said in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).\u00a0 He said that we are to teach them to observe everything that He commanded.<\/p>\n<p>So what did Jesus command?<\/p>\n<p>Didn&#8217;t Jesus give us that basic command &#8220;love your neighbor as yourself?&#8221;\u00a0 If you recognize the fact that Jesus would consider the innocent child in the womb to be our neighbor, then you know that the Great Commission includes &#8212; as a priority &#8212; teaching others to protect those innocent neighbors.<\/p>\n<p>Pastors who pass the buck on this are simply disobeying the Great Commission &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>disobeying the Gospel &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>disobeying Jesus!<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, our efforts have included developing some resources to reach pastors with this message, and we brought some of these resources along here today.\u00a0 We have some little cards that reference a website, the Pastors Pro-Life Resource Center (pastorsprolife.org).\u00a0 We also have DVDs called Dear Pastor.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a dramatization of a woman talking to her pastor about her abortion, and some actual testimonies from a couple of real pastors.<\/p>\n<p>We also have resources that are designed for women thinking about the abortion pill.\u00a0 It shows them on one side that the baby in their womb, even at that early development, is real, is a child, is precious to God.\u00a0 Then on the other side it says even if you&#8217;ve taken the abortion pill, it&#8217;s not too late to save your baby.<\/p>\n<p>Now that you have made the effort to be here today, and to let your community know that you stand up for human life, you have a job to do.\u00a0 You&#8217;re now more accountable than you were this morning.\u00a0 You are affirming by your presence here today that you know that abortion kills innocent people and brings harm upon your community.\u00a0 You know what a blight this place [Planned Parenthood] is to your community.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_433\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/DSCF4375sm.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-433\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-433\" alt=\"Victorville Planned Parenthood\" src=\"http:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/DSCF4375sm-300x225.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"http:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/DSCF4375sm-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/DSCF4375sm-1024x768.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-433\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Even on a Sunday afternoon, the Victorville Planned Parenhood was open for business. Terri spent a few minutes talking to the Planned Parenthood security guard, who was making sure that nobody could get anywhere near their property.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>You are more responsible than those who didn&#8217;t care enough to be here today.\u00a0 Will you leave this place today and forget about the babies who are dying?\u00a0 Or will you devote your time, your treasures and your talents to this effort on an ongoing basis?\u00a0 Will you speak up when you have a chance, or will you remain silent?\u00a0 Even if you&#8217;re not a pastor or a politician,\u00a0 God has given you a voice, and He does expect you to use it.\u00a0 Today should not be the end of your efforts on behalf of these innocent members of this community.\u00a0 It should be just the beginning.<\/p>\n<p>Even if many of your neighbors may not care about what is happening here today, you are the conscience of Victorville &#8212; the conscience of this entire High Desert region.\u00a0 A conscience is like an immune system &#8212; you are like the immune system for this community.\u00a0 The immune system fights things that are going to be detrimental to the body.<\/p>\n<p>If your conscience is silenced &#8212; if your immune system is silenced &#8212; the end is just around the corner.\u00a0 The devil is crouching at the door waiting for his opportunity to steal, kill and destroy everything you have stood for.<\/p>\n<p>But as long as you &#8212; the conscience of this community &#8212; are alive and well, there is hope.\u00a0 And I just want to thank you today for being here to keep that hope alive!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a title=\"Victorville March for Life 2014\" href=\"http:\/\/watchwhattheyaredoing.org\/2014\/01\/20\/march-for-life-2014-speakers\/\" target=\"_blank\">More videos<\/a> from this event<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this 13 minute video, Tim Palmquist (flanked by two City Council members) speaks at the Victorville March for Life, which was held on January 19, 2014 in front of the new Victorville Planned Parenthood mega center.\u00a0 (For the best <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/2014\/02\/survival\/\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,15,5,14],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ministry-projects","category-news","category-politics","category-pro-life-philosophy","tag-pastors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":434,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402\/revisions\/434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/palmquists.glorifyJesus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}