Jim Bladow Funeral

More Planned Parenthood Body Part Sales Videos - For a Lamborghini

Second Planned Parenthood video points to ‘callous business of killing’

By Roger Drinnon

In a second undercover video released July 21 by the pro-life Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a senior Planned Parenthood official purportedly negotiates transactions of baby body parts referred to as “specimens” and “intact tissue.” At the end of the video, she jokes, “I want a Lamborghini.”  

Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, speaks at a July 16 press conference with fellow members of the LCMS Sanctity of Life Committee at the LCMS International Center. With her, from left, are the Rev. Dr. Kevin Voss, Concordia Bioethics Institute director; the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Lange, pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church, Evanston, Wyo.; the Rev. Dr. James Lamb, Lutherans For Life executive director; the Rev. Christopher Esget, pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church, Alexandria, Va.; and Tracy Quaethem, project coordinator for LCMS Life Ministry. (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford)

“The Planned Parenthood Federation of America is the nation’s largest abortion chain, killing more than 300,000 unborn children every year, almost one-third of all abortions performed,” said National Right to Life Committee President Carol Tobias, after reviewing the latest video. “It should be no surprise that the callous business of killing these innocent little human beings would extend to the disposal of their body parts for money.”
Tobias also is a member of the LCMS Sanctity of Life Committee that met at the Synod’s International Center in St. Louis July 16-17. Committee members held a July 16 press conference in the wake of CMP’s first video release, which has since been authenticated. Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, issued an apology July 16 for the tone her staff member used in that video, but then went on to deny that Planned Parenthood sells baby parts for profit.
View video footage of the press conference  or listen to full audio of the press conference, courtesy of KFUO Radio.
Not long after the first video surfaced, the Rev. Bart Day, executive director of the LCMS Office of National Mission, issued a statement on behalf of the LCMS denouncing the comments made by the Planned Parenthood staff member in the video.
In light of both videos, Tobias urges LCMS Lutherans and the general public to voice a stronger pro-life position in the public square.
“After 43 years of abortion on demand, too many pro-life people have become numbed to the daily carnage and apathetic to the need for action,” said Tobias. “These little ones, made in God’s image, need all of us to be their voices.”
For information on LCMS Life Ministry, go to lcms.org/life.
Readers also may access:

• “Missouri to investigate Planned Parenthood after video controversy” (stltoday.com)
• “Ideas for Reporters Struggling to Cover Planned Parenthood” (thefederalist.com)
• “Second video shows Planned Parenthood doc haggling over price of fetal body parts” (foxnews.com)
• “Planned Parenthood apologizes for exec’s ‘tone’ in video” (TheHill.com)
• “Planned Parenthood exec, fetal body parts subject of controversial video” (CNN.com)

Roger Drinnon (roger.drinnon@lcms.org) is manager of Editorial Services for LCMS Communications.
Posted July 21, 2015 / Updated July 22, 2015

Proper 11 - G - 2015 - The Shepherd of Shepherdless Sheep

Evening Prayer - July 15, 2015 - Luther's Large Catechism

Planned Parenthood Selling Parts of Aborted Babies

‘We are for life, no matter the cost’ Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, We logged on to the Internet and Facebook yesterday only to be hit with a sickening story: undercover video footage seemingly implicating Planned Parenthood in the sale of the body parts of aborted children. In the video, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Senior Director of Medical Services, Dr. Deborah Nucatola, discusses how she adjusts abortion procedures to procure certain parts of a child’s body, even as she notes that “we’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver.” Listen long enough, if you can handle it, and you’ll hear her suggest that such items could eventually be listed on a Planned Parenthood “menu” for affiliate organizations to purchase for a price. Later in the day, Planned Parenthood released a “nothing to see here” kind of statement, asserting that the discussion was merely one revolving around a patient’s right to donate tissue, as with any medical procedure. But why does Nucatola then mention the costs of body parts (“Thirty to one hundred dollars,” she says)? Lord, have mercy. If what Nucatola says is, in fact, the truth, we as Christians cannot allow this story to go untold or be buried by the media. We simply cannot remain silent while the reprehensible act of killing a child in the womb is made even worse by selling portions of that child’s dismembered body simply because there is a market for them. Speaking up about the shameful act of killing children — as well as harvesting their body parts — may be uncomfortable. We may lose friends and create awkward tension at work. Our professors may mock us, and our family may roll their eyes at us. If that is the case, so be it. Because as Lutherans, as Christians, we are for life, no matter the cost. As Lutherans, we confess that every life has value, that it has worth, that it matters … from the moment of conception until natural death occurs. We confess that what Nucatola calls “17-weekers” are actually children — with beating hearts and little moving fingers and toes. We confess that even the tiniest of humans are just that — regardless of what scientific term the culture uses to make them seem like something less. We confess that they are created in the image and likeness of our Lord Himself. And we confess that because of Him, their hearts and lungs and livers matter, no matter how small they might be. We also admit our own failings in this regard. Where we have failed to speak and act for life, we repent. Where we have not cared for mothers in crisis-pregnancy situations, we ask for forgiveness. Where we have thought more of ourselves than giving to an organization that can assist those moms and babies, we are sorry. Where we have been apathetic to this pandemic of death, we grieve. But we are not without hope, because our Lord is for life too. He is so pro-life, in fact, that He has given His own life for us, even as He has laid it down for these tiniest of children. Where their short lives are taken, He offers up His willingly. Where their little bodies are sold, He gives His freely to us at His holy table for the forgiveness of our sins. Today let us confess life with renewed vigor — to our friends over supper, through letters to the editor of our local paper, by writing our congressmen, in tweets and emails to Planned Parenthood, on our Facebook pages. Let us pray that our Lord would bring an end to abortion altogether and that He would stop the horrible sale of infant bodies. And let us pray that He would forgive us, renew us and bolster us to make a good confession in season and out of season: one that is always, no matter what, for life. Rev. Bart Day, executive director Life and Health Ministries LCMS Office of National Mission Resources Two-hour video footage of Planned Parenthood executive’s discussion regarding infant body parts Eight-minute video clip version of the above Written transcript of the video footage “Planned Parenthood exec, fetal body parts subject of controversial video”(CNN) “Planned Parenthood sells dead baby parts” (Fox News)

If you have questions about this email or need assistance, please contact the LCMS Church Information Center at 888-THE LCMS (843-5267) or infocenter@lcms.org.

Clifford Kraemer Funeral Sermon

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text today is the epistle lesson just read. 

Dear friends in Christ, especially family and friends of Cliff.  I saw Cliff in the hospital a number days before he died.  He was calm, enjoying a lunch and a visit with family.  He looked at peace, and calm about what was happening.  We didn’t speak specifically about this text for today, but I imagine that if we did, the words would ring true for Cliff much as they did for St. Paul. 

“I have fought the good fight.  I have finished the race,” and most importantly “I have kept the faith.”  Cliff knew that his end was near, he knew that he would soon leave this world, and its suffering and cancer behind, and he trusted in the grace of Jesus Christ to save him.  And because of that he knew that there awaited him, the “crown of righteousness” which he would wear forever and ever without end with his Lord Jesus Christ. 

This past Friday evening, the time of departure came for Cliff.  He left this world, and now he rests with Jesus forever and ever.  He rests in the arms of Jesus, at peace, cancer free, until the end of eternity. 

Let’s not get confused about what has happened.  Jesus came and called Cliff from this vale of tears to heaven.  It wasn’t because of Cliff’s greatness, or kindness, or anything about Cliff at all really.  It was because of God’s great love, a love so deep, and broad and high, that no price was too high to purchase and win Cliff from this world.  And so it is that God so loved Cliff, that he gave his only son into death on a cross, so that Cliff’s sin would not mean Cliff’s end.  Rather, Jesus’ righteousness would become the crown that Cliff would wear. 

And the fight that Cliff fought in this world was really fought by Christ as well.  Jesus, by suffering and dying on the cross, defeated Satan, death, and sin forevermore for Cliff.  Satan had no power over Cliff in life because of Jesus, and now in death Satan still stands defeated.  For, as Paul writes, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 

In fact, death has been destroyed by life.  A life that nothing can conquer, or deter, or swallow.  Our Redeemer lives, as Job writes, and we shall see him, just as Cliff sees him now.  With our own eyes.  Face to face.  With joy, with smiling, with familial recognition.  How our hearts should faint within us. 

And the truth is, that Cliff, and us as well, have the same promise for us as Jesus now experiences.  Bodily resurrection.  Today we lay Cliff to rest – not in a final resting place, but in a place where his body will rest until Christ calls it forth on the last day, to live and reign with Christ in the new creation forever more. 

Cliff’s fight has been fought – and Christ has won it.  The race has been finished, it is complete.  And throughout it all, by the Grace of God, and by the work of the blessed Holy Spirit, Cliff has kept the faith, and now that faith bears fruit to eternity. 

We still hurt.  We still mourn.  We will still miss Cliff day in and day out, we’ll remember the times that we had together.  We will continue running our race, and fighting our fights, awaiting the day when we too will be called by the voice of our lord to live forevermore.  Awaiting our eternal life and our resurrection.  Cliff is with Christ.  One day we shall be as well.  In faith, we will wear the crown of Christ’s righteousness. 

In the name of Jesus.  Amen.  

Bertha Jording Prayer Service and Funeral

Our Current Sunday Morning Bible Study - Marriage and Homosexuality

Dear friends, we have started a short Sunday Morning Bible Study on what Marriage is according to God's Word.

If you missed the first session, you can still catch up.  Feel free to download from Around The World Devotions Here.  

Also, if you are looking for a daily devotion, Around the World Devotions provides a weekly one page devotion with readings for each day and a hymn to learn.  Check it out.  It is sponsored by Issues ETC.  They were the source of this years Lenten Devotionals.

Proper 10 - E - 2015 - Only Jesus

Homosexuality is not the only 6th commandment sin.

We Christians are often judged to be hypocrite, bigots, jerks and more all for the bolded statement which follows shortly.  And yet it is true and it must be said.  Please read the whole article before you lambaste me on facebook. 

Homosexuality and same-sex attraction is sin, breaking the 6th commandment of God, and is deserving of judgment by God. 

Please, all you who disagree, calm down.  Hear me out.  I’m not saying this hypocritically.  It’s the truth: it is sin. 

At the same time, please, those of you in the church, don’t cheer yet, don’t celebrate and say, “Go get ‘em, Pastor.”  Don’t be all high and mighty, or pious and holy.  Because I have more to say, which you yourself may find offensive to your ears.  Yet what I’m about to say is just as true as what I just said.  It needs to be said, and you probably need to hear it if your heart is beating.  As I say what follows, remember Christ’s words, “Remove the log from your own eye before worrying about the speck in your neighbors eye. 

When you live together with your “significant other” outside of marriage, it is sin that in God’s eyes is just as bad as homosexuality and just as deserving of judgment.  When you have sex with someone who is not your God-given spouse, it is sin.  When sex is between 3, 4, 5, or more people, it is sin.  When a teenager is pregnant out of wedlock, it is sin. 

When you look at someone and imagine what is underneath their clothing, it is sin.  When you look at pornography – and statistics show that 70% of you did last month (one site alone had more visits that ESPN and CNN combined!) – you are guilty of sin against the 6^th commandment just like homosexuality.  If you’ve taken a picture of yourself naked and given it to someone in any variety, it’s sin. 

When you check out the bikinis on the beach.  When you have the one-night stand with the person at the bar.  When each of your children have a different set of parents.  That is sin.  When sex is just about pleasure and fun, and not about the two being one flesh, it is sin.  When you chat with people in explicit ways on websites, it is sin.  When you are by yourself and your hands are not on their best “Christian behavior”, it is sin. 

Or how about these?  When divorce is a part of your life, it is sin.  When there is not giving and receiving, loving and submitting in your marriage as Paul writes in Ephesians 5, it is sin.  Husbands, when you won’t be the spiritual leader of your family, teaching your children the faith and sitting with them in the pews, it is sin on the caliber of homosexuality.  Wives, when you despise your husband, purposely undermining his spiritual authority, it is sin.  When husband and wife fight and argue, it is sin. 

All of these things are sin - whether you've called them that or not, whether you've admitted it or not. 

You see, we Christians have no room to be high and mighty in regards to the 6^th commandment.  We are just as guilty and wrong in regards to God’s Word about sex and marriage as the next.  God’s Word is very clear about sex and marriage.  If we are going to take it seriously on one point, we have to take it seriously at all points.  We can’t gerrymander the meaning of God’s Word to fit what we want.  It means what it says and says what it means. 

If God’s Word is true, we all stand equally condemned.  God’s Sixth Commandment Word condemns me to hell.  God’s Sixth Commandment Word condemns you to hell.  God’s Word is so very clear.  There can be no avoiding it.  It condemns.  It is a sharp sword cutting to the soul, separating joint and marrow.  We’ve sinned against God, and the consequences are dreadful.  If you don’t realize that, it is only because you are lying to yourself – suffering from the hypocrisy that Christianity is so often accused of. 

The question then is this, “What do we do about the situation?”  There are two options. 

Option One:  Decide that Scripture is not God’s Word.  Thus, God’s Word does not condemn our sixth commandment sins.  Thus we are free to do all of the things listed above freely without any fear of the consequences – after all, love wins!  This is direction many mainline churches have gone, notably the ELCA, the Presbyterians, and the Episcopalians. 

This is the easy option.  When the going gets tough, go another way.  This option fails to address serious questions about why believe anything in the Bible if Scripture is not God’s Word.  It also disregards an omnipotent, omniscient God who knew what society would be like when He founded His church.  It is an option based not on the opinions of God, but the opinions of man. 

If you follow this opinion, your only option in responding to a differing view is to respond in kind – when party one is “persecuting” party two, in your opinion, you just persecute them back more severely than they are doing while patting everyone who agrees with you on the back.  

Option Two:  Believe God’s Word condemns you, and confess your sins.  Realize the same condemnation that condemns the sin of homosexuality is the same condemnation that condemns you for your sin against God’s gift of marriage.  Confess it boldly, non-hypocritically.  Admit your sin with a repentant heart, in the full realization that there is nothing that you can do to erase your sins by your actions.  Confess and trust in Christ. 

It is Christ who paid for your sin and my sin.  He died for homosexual’s sin, and straight people’s sin.  He died to make the unrighteous righteous.  In Him and in Him alone is there forgiveness and an answer for sin against marriage.  Confess your sins to your pastor, so that you might hear the words of absolution for your sins, and trust that when he speaks them to you, it is really Christ who is forgiving your sin in heaven as well as on earth.  After all, Jesus wins! 

Do you see the difference between the two options?  Option one is based upon the human feeling that “I can determine what is right and wrong on my own, and therefore I can justify whatever I want.”  Option two says, “God determines what is right and wrong and tells me in His Word – He also tells me the only hope for my justification is Jesus.”  Therefore we as Christians live a life according to God’s Word as best we can – obeying what God says, instead of throwing it out. 

This tragedy, the Christian disregard for the 6^th commandment, has now been realized in the Supreme Court ruling, but it did not begin there.  It began with sinful ignoring of God’s Word.  We ought not be surprised then, since in our own sin we have been ignoring God’s Word about marriage in a variety of ways.  If we want to do something about the Supreme Court ruling, let’s follow Jesus’ advice and get the log out of our own eye.  Let’s call cohabitation and sexual perversion what it is, in all of its occurrences!  Husbands, let’s love our wives as Christ loves us.  Wives, submit to your husbands as to Christ.  Let’s strive for “‘til death do us part”.  Parents, continually tell your children that sex outside marriage is sin.  Teens, let’s quit sexting, and fornicating, and instead live a chaste life, saving ourselves for our spouse, so that we can fully realize the one-fleshness of marriage and raise children in the fear and love of God.  

I know that is heavy law.  But it is necessary for us to hear and believe so that we might repent of our own sin as we call our society into repentance. 

It won’t be easy.  It will be totally against society and its teaching.  It will be us living our lives “in” the world but not “of” the world. 

As Christ says, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two but one flesh.  What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”  That’s marriage. 

Repent for not making marriage the way that Christ describes it.  Repent and be forgiven by His mercy, and His mercy alone.  

And uphold marriage.  Our failures to do so is 100% of the problem with the supreme court and society today.  As your pastor, I will be working to do so to the best of my ability.  

Worldview Everlasting On the Supreme Court

Proper 9 - E - 2015 - Thorn in the Flesh

Not eligible for a Sermon Note!

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.  Our text today comes from the Epistle lesson just read, especially these words, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”  Thus far our text. 

Dear friends in Christ.  A thorn in the flesh was given to St. Paul.  Something to torment him, to keep him from trusting in himself too much, something that made him look only to Jesus Christ for salvation.  I mean, lets face it, if anyone could boast about themselves, it would be St. Paul.  He had brought countless people to the faith.  He had travelled the entire Roman empire, preaching his gospel in the face of persecution and torture.  He’d been beaten, and stoned.  He’d been snuck out of a city over the wall.  And yet still he remained faithful in preaching the unadulterated word of God to all who would hear. 

But he had that thorn in the flesh.  Something that kept him grounded in the reality of his sin.  Something that reminded him that he was not, in himself, good enough to make God happy.  We don’t now know what the thorn in Paul’s flesh was.  Some suggest it was an eyesight problem from his conversion – when he was blinded by scales covering his eyes.  Some think it may have been an ongoing injury from a beating he received.  Some believe it was ongoing guilt from his persecution and murder of Christians, including St. Stephen.  We do not know for sure what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was, but it was there. 

Three times, Paul prays, “Lord take my affliction away from me.”  And each time the answer the same, “My grace is sufficient for you.”  You see, Paul’s salvation wasn’t based upon his holiness, or the people to whom he preached the Gospel, or the number of towns that he visited.  His salvation wasn’t based upon his overcoming the trials of this world, or the thorns in the flesh which attacked him.  He didn’t get heaven because he made himself a better person, dressed nicely, or touched thousands of lives.  He was saved only because of the grace of Jesus.  That grace was sufficient for him.  And that grace promised him much more than any thorn in the flesh could take from him. 

Today, dear friends, we too have thorns in the flesh.  We have sinful pride, and fits of unbelief.  We have all sorts of ideas about how we can be saved, or why we can’t be saved.  And we suffer.  Cancer, aging, forgetfulness and more.  We ask God, over and over – please Lord not me, please Lord take away my affliction.  Please heal me!  But God’s answer is the same – My Grace is sufficient for you.

And we are persecuted in this world.  No where have we seen that more clearly than in the last week, when the United States Government ruled that we could no longer exercise our religion freely in regards to our belief on marriage.  We are laughed at and mocked.  We are disparaged on facebook and by friends when we don’t hang up rainbow flags.  And we pray, Lord have mercy, Lord fix our nation!  And his answer is the same – My grace is sufficient for you. 

And our greatest afflictions are within.  Our sin is huge.  It is ever present.  We do what we do not want to do, and the good we wish to do we do not do.  We fail in thought word and deed, we beg God to allow us to live more holy and up right lives, perhaps we even lie to ourselves saying, “No longer do I sin,” even if we know our sin continues.  Lord, help us not to sin, and the answer comes again.  My grace is sufficient for you. 

His grace is sufficient.  His grace came at great cost and it came for you.  It was won on a cross, with suffering and dying by the very Son of God in fleshed.  His blood was poured out.  His life was given over.  And he did it all for you.  That is his grace – to save you not by what you have done, or not done, but only by what he has done. 

He shares his grace with you, through the precious means of grace – through the Word and the blessed sacraments.  He gives you all that you need day in and day out – grace wise.  When you are persecuted, you know that Jesus has overcome and given you his grace.  When a particularly bad sin is present in you, Confess it knowing Jesus blood has covered it. When you grow old and sick in this world and your body begins to die, know that it is by grace you have been saved through faith. 

The Grace of Jesus is enough for you. Every day.  In persecution and in joy.  In sickness and in health.  The grace of Jesus will carry you through, because that grace is sufficient for you, and always shall be.  In the name of Jesus. 

Amen.