In past messages we warned that the steady rise in the legalization of abortions and doctor assisted suicides would inevitably lead to the sanctioned euthanasia of people. Understandable skepticism may have fostered the view that this assessment was perhaps the rambling of an alarmist or that perpetration of such heinous acts would surely have to wait for the day when the Anti-Christ had established his rule over the earth during the Tribulation Period (II Thess. 2:3)..
What these rightfully cautious ones fail to fathom is that we are in fact presently living in the shadow of the appearance of the Anti-Christ and that this world under death's eclipse is relentlessly being prepared for the Man of Sin's short 7 year reign.
The mass extermination of souls during the Anti-Christ's reign, as revealed in the Book of Revelation, uncovers for us an approaching period when the world as a whole has essentially no regard for human life.
Throughout history a record can be found of when pockets of so-called civilization cast off the restraints of decency God put in their hearts and the depths of man's utter depravity surfaced to exalt in Satan's will. Call those times by whatever name you may choose, pogroms, inquisitions, ethnic cleansing, crusades, genocide, infanticide, etc, they are all confirmation of God's revealed truth about the hell-bent sin nature of mankind.
In Jeremiah 17:9, God tells us without qualification, "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?"
Quoting from the Dec. 5, ‘04 Colorado Springs Gazette article which headlined, "Dutch hospital openly euthanizes infants - Doctors ask government to review mercy killing of people ‘with no free will'" we read, "A hospital in the Netherlands - the first nation to permit euthanasia - recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, then made a startling revelation: It already has begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives.
The announcement by the Groningen Academic Hospital came amid a growing discussion in Holland about whether to legalize euthanasia on people incapable of deciding for themselves whether they want to end their lives - a prospect viewed with horror by euthanasia opponents and as a natural evolution by advocates.
In August, the main Dutch doctors' association, KNMG, urged the Health Ministry to created an independent board to review euthanasia cases for terminally ill people "with no free will," including children, the severely mentally retarded and people left in an irreversible coma after an accident.
The Health Ministry is preparing its response, which could come as soon as this month, a spokesman said.
Three years ago, the Dutch Parliament made it legal for doctors to inject a sedative and a lethal dose of muscle relaxant at the request of adult patients suffering great pain with no hope of relief.
The Groningen Protocol, as the hospital's guidelines have come to be known, would create a legal framework for permitting doctors to actively end the life of newborns deemed to be in similar pain from incurable disease or extreme deformities.
The guideline says euthanasia is acceptable when the child's medical team and independent doctors agree that pain cannot be eased and there is no prospect for improvement, and when parents think it's best.
Examples include extremely premature births, where children suffer brain damage from bleeding and convulsions; and diseases where a child could survive only on life support for the rest of its life, such as severe cases of spina bifida and epidermosis bullosa, a rare blistering illness.
The hospital revealed last month that it carried out four such mercy killings in 2003, and reported all cases to government prosecutors. There have been no legal proceedings against the hospital or the doctors.
Roman Catholic organizations and the Vatican have reacted with outrage to the announcement, and U.S. euthanasia opponents contend the proposal shows the Dutch have lost their moral compass.
"The slippery slope in the Netherlands has descended already into a vertical cliff," said Wesley Smith, a prominent California-based critic, in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
Child euthanasia remains illegal everywhere. Experts say doctors outside Holland do not report cases for fear of prosecution."
The analogy of the Netherlands practicing euthanasia being the equivalent of going down a vertical cliff was quite appropriate. Just as abortion was first introduced as an extreme life saving measure only, then swiftly advanced to infanticide, and assisted suicide is moving from the terminally ill to eliminating those who are depressed, so to will the market for euthanizing individuals expand to include all manner of situations.
The desperately wicked heart can always justify its inconsistencies and find its own acceptable ground to sanction its evil motives. There are problem people to eliminate and money to be made all in the name of so-called humanitarian gestures and the greater good of mankind.
The Lord God said of these tactics in verses 21-22 of the fifth chapter of Isaiah, "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!"
As the short but to-the-point bumper sticker reads, "It's not a choice, it's a child," so we can say, "It's not a choice, it's a God-given-life."
Understand that what is increasingly being done and is frightfully expanding in scope, are not measures to make someone's death more tolerable, but overt acts of murder. Dark, deceitful hearts are now deciding who should live or die by their determination of what qualifies as an acceptable quality of life, making irrelevant the fact that apart from the magnificent redemptive plan of God, the life they are destroying is the only life the discarded will ever have.
In Revelation 20:12 we are told of God's Book of Life where the names of all who He has given life to are recorded (Acts 17:25).
The question that then faces the destroyers of life is, "Does God sometimes make mistakes when He gives life to an individual?" If one believes the answer to be yes, then that person does not know God. God does not give life haphazardly as is attested to by His meticulous record of every individuals name he has preserved in the Book of Life.
As these final days before the return of Jesus Christ grow ever darker, it is a hard, cold fact that there is an agenda by selfish, evil men to reduce the earth's population by any means so that a predetermined remnant can prosper in an envisioned world of overly abundant resources.
Some measures of planned depopulation, such as birth control, forced sterilization and homosexual unions are being established for the long range prospect of population maintenance, while more overt measures like initiated warfare, abortions, induced famines and epidemics are and will be used to swiftly reduce the earth's population. It doesn't matter whether or not one wants to believe that powerful wicked men control the means to bring about such abominable misery and destruction, what does matter is that the Word of God found in the book of Revelation affirms the fact that such a thing is true.
The end result of just a handful of men's goals will directly and indirectly result in the destruction of two thirds to three quarters of the earth's population, and if Christ does not stop the out of control carnage we are told in Mark 13:20 that no flesh will be saved.
It will be during this time when executions and euthanasia will reach the blackest point of its darkness under the global rulership of the Anti-Christ, his false prophet and their appointed ten kings. Countless people will be destroyed because of their faith in Jesus Christ. The Tribulation saints will be classified as misfits and a burden upon the new order of society. They will be forced to either conform to Anti-Christ's perception of acceptable life or be destroyed.
The question of their right to God-given life will be irrelevant since the Anti-Christ will present himself as being God and therefore the supreme authority of who should live or die (II Thess. 2:4). They will be killed swiftly for their own good as might be said of an unwanted and uncared for animal at the Humane Society. Official documents in the past have labeled fundamentalist Christians as mentally ill.
We are witnessing the mind set being established for the coming days when men will kill the Tribulation Period followers in Christ and will believe they are doing a favor for God.
These are the closing days of the age before Christ removes His Church to join Him in the heavens prior to when the days of the Anti-Christ begin (see I Thess 4:15-18).
This moment is the time to put your faith in Jesus, the only Begotten Son of God, for the forgiveness of all your sins. Any day now your days may come to a close or God's heavenly trumpet will summon the faithful home. Don't delay your decision for life in Christ, the next moment may be too late.