Vertical Thought has been through an adjustment in the past two months and we are pleased to bring you an update featuring some of the material from our reinvigorated website.

Two cases have blanketed the news in the past several weeks. Both involve the destruction of human lives.

In one case the murder of three helpless newborn infants by an abortion doctor named Kermit Gosnell. The other is a case of captivity, violence and abuse against three young women by a sadistic abductor, Ariel Castro.

The media has given endless airtime to these tragic stories. But what about the estimated 54,559,615 million, and counting, other voices that have gone unheard? Those whose lives have been cut off before they’ve barely begun for the past 40 years since the Roe v. Wade decision by the United States Supreme Court legalizing abortion?

Why should any of these stories concern a young person like you?

A choice

Within the framework of God’s way of life outlined in the Bible that question answers itself. All human life is sacred to God.

Wanton violence, whether directed toward children or adults begets violence. Many arguments are made for abortion, but let’s face it; babies are aborted because they are inconvenient, in one way or another, to their parents. Their lives aren’t wanted.

The ancient world also murdered babies, except they did it not out of inconvenience, but out of a twisted idea that the dead baby would appease the god who was worshipped in this way.

Those gods were Molech or Baal, deities of the Canaanite pantheon. Parents willingly gave up their first-born to be tossed screaming onto a bronze platform, the arms of the idol, superheated by an enormous bonfire. These little lives ended in an excruciating inferno, incinerated. The adults drowned out their guilt with the incessant beating of drums. The name of this site in the Valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem was called “Tophet,” the roasting place.

Jerusalem was the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Israel under King David and King Solomon, and the nation eventually paid dearly for committing such atrocities. The northern Kingdom of Israel and southern Kingdom of Judah, which had split, both faced, expulsion, captivity and utter destruction at the hands of cruel adversaries, the Assyrians and Babylonians, respectively. But not before thousands, possibility millions of Israelites died at the hands of these aggressors.

Your choice

Could this happen again? Do you need to care?

God’s judgment on any nation is not withheld forever, and national sins have to be accounted for, just as much as individual ones.

As individuals, however, we can stand up for what is truth. God’s word is truth and it deplores violence without cause:

“My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent…do not walk in the way with them, keep your foot from their path; for their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood (Proverbs 1:10-16).”

You can stand up against that sinful path! God’s word is an endless resource that keeps you focused on the path of the righteous.

As Vertical Thought explores the ins and outs of that path, find out what exactly God has planned for those who truly seek Him. In the end, His plan will restore the nations of this world to true peace—a time when senseless violence and waste of human life will cease. 

Keep looking for future updates from Vertical Thought, and join us as together we pursue the best way of life—God’s way!