Threats to Children and Life

I want to connect the Christmas message that is already within us through this season we are living in with this tragedy that occurred in Newtown, Connecticut. I know that the people of God need a Word of interpretation, a Word of teaching, a Word of strength and encouragement in the face of this tragedy. I tell you the truth: I feel neither intimidated nor afraid. I feel terrible pain in my heart, but the devil is defeated, brother; the devil is under the feet of Jesus Christ.

He does this because he knows that his time is short, you know? When the enemy finds himself cornered, he always does that; that is when he takes off his mask and shows his dirty, contaminated claws and his teeth, which he always tries to keep hidden beneath a decent and very rational-looking guise. But when he is desperate, he does these things, so I believe this is a sign of defeat rather than victory for him, you know? And I hope that from this tragedy a desire will arise in many people to truly seek God, and that they will realize where we are and how far we have come; and that is what I want to talk about.

But you know something? The Christmas story speaks to us about these things as well. And I want to bring the two things together: a reflection on the message of Christmas, along with an explanation of what has happened here in the United States in this tragedy and in other countries of the world where very similar things are happening, and also a Word of hope and a call concerning the kind of life we must live in light of the Word.

So look carefully in Luke chapter 2 at the theme of the Child Jesus, of childhood—the childlike nature of this almighty divine being who is Jesus Christ and who is born in the form of a baby—and at how Scripture takes the time to describe in great detail Jesus’ gestation in His mother’s womb, His birth, His nature as a baby, and all the other things. God took the time to let us know about that aspect because there is a message in it: in the childhood, in the childlike nature of the Son of God, there is a message for us throughout the ages.

So it says here—let us go to verse 6—and it says: “While they were there,” Joseph and Mary in Nazareth, it says that “while they were there, the days were fulfilled for her delivery,” for her to give birth, “and she gave birth to her firstborn son.” The first son she had was named Jesus, but He was not the last one, just in case; that is why it says her firstborn. “She gave birth to her firstborn son”—there is no firstborn, by the way, without a second or a third, but that is a little bonus for you there; that is beside the point. “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths”—the image of a baby, a little child—“an infant; she wrapped Him in swaddling cloths and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

And then it says—it tells us about the shepherds, right?—in verse 8, who see this Glory of God, and God is concerned that this little baby who is being born there in that completely inhospitable place not go unnoticed. He wants people to know that a child has been born who is the Son of God, and then—you know the story—He appears to the shepherds.

And verse 10 says: “But the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you news of great joy that will be for all the people: for today, in the city of David, a Savior has been born to you, who is Christ the Lord.’” Do you know that Christ was born to us? He was born to humanity; He was born into the family of the human race; He was born to us. He was not born only to God; He was born to you too—the Son of God, the newborn little child who is Christ Jesus.

And it says here in verse 12: “And this will be a sign to you: you will find the child wrapped in swaddling cloths”—childhood, childlike, a little baby—“lying in a manger. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly hosts praising God.” Then we move ahead: the shepherds hurry to where this sacred little baby is, and verse 16 says: “So they came hurriedly and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger; and when they saw Him, they made known what had been told them concerning the child, and all who heard it marveled at what the shepherds told them.”

Then it continues, right? Further on we see Jesus’ childhood. Then verse 21 says that the child was presented in the temple, and they took the child to be offered as the Mosaic law prescribed. And there in the temple, while the little child is being presented, there are two witnesses chosen by God. It is as though the nation of Israel itself were witnessing this, because God is very clear in the way He does things. And there are two elderly people there.

And I believe that is something interesting that I also want to point out, and it is this: God cares about little babies, and He also cares about the elderly. Those who are beginning life and are fragile, and those who are ending life and are also fragile—they are all precious to Him, you know? The elderly are precious to God as well, and God wants them to be part of His sacred story. Do you also know that people with cognitive problems, children born with Down syndrome, people who are paralyzed, people with different kinds of cognitive limitations, and the elderly are sacred to the Lord? People who have different kinds of cognitive limitations are sacred to the Lord.

The elderly are sacred; people who have different physical, mental, cerebral, and neurological disabilities are sacred. It is life; they have a soul, they reflect the image of God in some way, and they must be valued. So the Christmas story includes a fragile little baby who soiled Himself—forgive the expression—and therefore needed diapers, and it also includes elderly people such as Simeon and Anna, whom God reserves to bless His baby, who has been born into the family of humanity. And the Lord delights in that blessing as well.

That is why I want to speak to you about celebrating life in whatever form it comes, and our church must be a church of life, one that celebrates life. I thank the Lord that He allows us to defend life in many ways. And when these little children come, for example, from different Latin American countries through the Hands of Mercy Ministry and our sister Marta Garzón, and we work with these little children who have been—and I speak about them freely in this way because I do not think they are necessarily here today; they were here this morning—but when we can work in our church with these little children who have been disfigured and, in certain ways, have suffered different kinds of burns and all that, I say, “Wow! What a tremendous privilege we have to be able to bless those children, brothers and sisters.”

You do not realize how wonderful that is and how privileged we are as a congregation to be able to work in such a beautiful ministry as that one. And likewise, with the people wandering around out there, the people suffering from different kinds of problems in their lives, for our church to be able to help with that is also a tremendous privilege because—I will tell you why in just a moment—it is obvious, but I want to speak to you about it.

But look at that, right? Christmas includes those people who are disadvantaged, in a certain sense. It also includes the shepherds, who had a despised occupation in Middle Eastern culture. No one wanted to be a shepherd because, in that culture, it was something very lowly. And whom does God choose to witness the birth of His little baby? Not the rich and powerful, but the shepherds as well, and the elderly. Because God cares about life in its deepest and most powerful form, and that is why the Church of Christ must love life and respect life. We want to speak more about that.

So notice that, right? Much of the Christmas story revolves around the image of a child, a baby, an infant, and wherever the announcement and proclamation of Christmas and the Christmas message appear, children and the childlike aspect of the Son of God are mentioned. Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6, is one of the prophetic expressions from centuries before Jesus was born. The prophet Isaiah, in one of the most beautiful passages in the Old Testament, which prophesies about the birth of the coming Messiah, says there in Isaiah 9:6: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.”

So you see that God is interested in emphasizing not only the masculine aspect, the manhood, adulthood, and maturity of His Son, but also His fragile, childlike aspect—His childhood. Luke chapter 1 tells us the story of Zechariah and Anna—Elizabeth, right?—the birth of another son: John the Baptist. A couple who could not have children, and God blesses them in their old age with a son as well, right?

The Gospels tell us in great detail about the angel’s announcement concerning the birth of the Son of God. Mary’s pregnancy is described to us in detail: how the angel tells her, “Look, the Spirit of God will come upon you; He will mysteriously impregnate you; He will cause the very life of God to be born within you. And the seed of life that will be within you will not come from the union of the life of a man and a woman; no. It is the life of God with the life of a member of the human race, a woman: Eve.” Then the life of man and the life of God will be united, and from that union will come a holy being who is the Son of God.

So that account is also given to us in a very beautiful way, right? Mary’s pregnancy, the birth of the child. And then the Christmas story also tells us about Jesus’ childhood, His presentation in the temple, the elderly Simeon who takes Him in his arms and thanks God because, before he passes away, God has allowed him to see this hope for Israel and for all humanity.

And then, further on, we are presented with the famous event of Jesus in the temple discussing matters with the teachers of the law. The child is now a little older, the life of God stronger and manifesting itself more fully within Him, and He discusses and instructs, leaving the teachers of the law astonished by His divinely inspired wisdom.

The culture of the Bible, brothers and sisters—the mindset we see throughout the Scriptures—is a culture that celebrates children, yes or no? Children, sons and daughters, the family. And that is why I believe God took so much time to present to us the baby, the child, the family of Mary and Joseph, the birth of another baby in the family of Elizabeth and Zechariah, and goes into such detail, like a mother who takes pictures of her baby and her child at different stages of his life, right? God took pictures of His baby and, through the Christmas story, gives us different stages of the child. Because He wants to celebrate not only His manhood and His death on the cross, but also His childhood, because God is a loving Father, right?

So we see that the Bible—because the Bible is a culture—the Father God, who tells the story of the Bible as a whole, celebrates children; He celebrates sons and daughters. Psalm 127, verses 3 through 5, declares: “Behold, children are an inheritance from the Lord.” It says: “The fruit of the womb is a thing to be esteemed.” How beautiful. A thing to be esteemed—one wishes one were a poet in order to say things like that, right? A thing to be esteemed. The fruit of a woman’s womb is something worthy of praise; it is something that should be admired.

Nowadays, for many women, brothers and sisters, that means varicose veins and losing their figure, inconvenience and more money that has to be spent, and bad timing because of “my career,” this, that, and the other. Quite the opposite: in this modern culture, the fruit of the womb is seen as an inconvenience, and they also dispose of the fruit of the womb. Whereas the Bible, in its way of thinking, says that children are something to be esteemed, something worthy of praise.

It says in verse 4: “Like arrows in the hands of a mighty man, so are the children born in one’s youth.” Children are a resource. A warrior knows that his arrows are his hope for life and defense in war. And so it says that, for human beings, children should be a resource, a blessing.

Children, young adults, I beg you to take note of this. God wants you to be a resource for your parents as well, and for your parents to be able to see in you hope for their old age. Do not throw your parents away like an old shoe when they reach old age, okay? Honor your parents, and make sure your parents can look at you and say, “If something happens to me in my old age, I will have a son, a daughter, who will defend me and keep me safe, who will bless me.” Do not yield to this selfish culture that says: “You know what? I did not ask my father or mother to bring me into this world, so that is his or her problem. They should take care of me because...” I have heard young people say that, you know?

The Bible says that children are a resource and a blessing. Now understand, there is a lot more that could be said about that. We parents must not exploit our children, nor should we live our lives through them, nor should we see them as instruments for our personal agendas. But the Bible does say that children are a resource; it says that this is what children born in one’s youth are like.

Verse 5 says: “Blessed is the man, the woman”—the culture, the society—“who filled his quiver with them.” What is a quiver? The quiver is where the warrior puts his arrows, the container for the arrows. It says: “Blessed is the one who filled his quiver with them; he will not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies at the gate.” What a beautiful, poetic image, right? It was the idea that, in cultures such as those of the Old Testament, how good it was to have three or four strong, grown sons standing behind their father if he had some problem with other people, right?

How beautiful that is, isn’t it? And how wonderful it is, when there are problems in life, to have some children around you, right? United families. Let me tell you something, my brothers and sisters: when things get worse for humanity—and they will get worse over time—the only thing that will save us is families staying together, okay? That is why we have to protect our families. Parents and children, and siblings, must come together. We must do that, and our church must be a family.

Bind yourself to four, six, eight, or ten close friends and love one another. As a church, we have to love one another more and more, because when hard times come and there are economic difficulties, you know what? A plantain can be divided into four or six pieces, and everyone can eat their little piece with a little oil and whatever else is around, a piece of avocado, and then you have everything you need, you know? When cultures come together, brothers and sisters, when there is unity, everything is possible.

You know, when a family is united, look, all you need to do is add a little more water to the soup and there is no problem; we keep moving forward, right? And where one person sleeps, four can sleep—don’t worry. So it is unity, it is that love, that preserves cultures, and there is no need to be afraid. We still have many things that we could lose and our lives would remain reasonable; everything we call necessities is purely pleasure and preference.

Many of the world’s cultures live on much less than we do here, and nowadays we feel as though we are going to die because, oh! The fuse in my 38- or 50-inch HD television blew, and now I have to find another one, and I have already gone two days without television—what a terrible thing. Brothers and sisters, there are much better, more fundamental things than that: that our family be a united family, that there be love between the parents, between husband and wife. That is the most important thing.

Biblical culture, the culture of the Bible, loves the family and loves children. It says that children are regarded as a blessing. In a biblical culture, parents rejoice when a new child comes into the world. And the Bible speaks to us about that again and again; Hannah, the mother of the prophet Samuel, was dying of grief because she could not have a child, and that is why God heard her cry when she was bleeding her heart out in the temple, and after that He gave her still more children. Samuel opened her womb, and then she had more children, because when God gives, He gives abundantly, let me tell you.

Psalm 113, verse 9, says: “God gives the barren woman a home, making her rejoice in being a mother of children.” The Bible praises children; biblical culture, and any human culture based on the principles of the Word of God, will love children and the family. Cultures that are not aligned with God and His principles do not value children.

Now then. We see clearly that the Christmas account celebrates the birth of two children to mothers who, incidentally, could not have children. It celebrates the birth of John the Baptist and also gives us a wealth of details about his miraculous birth. So alongside the Christmas account is this idea of children being born to families that could not have children: Mary because she was a virgin, Elizabeth because she was barren; but God wanted to give these women children.

In other words, that is my first point, right? The Bible celebrates the family and celebrates children, and the Christmas account celebrates the childhood of Jesus Christ. But, brothers and sisters, the Christmas account also speaks to us about another aspect of Christmas concerning children. We are told about a sinister figure named Herod—a king who felt threatened by the birth and presence of a child who was going to reign. He did not understand that this king was not a political king. His reign was not actually threatened by the child. Perhaps the evil within him was threatened, but this child was not going to compete with him politically; nevertheless, Herod felt threatened by Him.

And so he wanted to kill Him, and it says that he ordered the killing of all the children under two years of age who lived in Bethlehem and the surrounding area. He wanted to make sure. He said, “He must have been born sometime between this date and that date, and to make sure, I am going to kill all those born a little earlier and a little later.”

Notice something interesting, right? That spirit of genocide—the spirit of genocide, massacre, and death—is born in any culture that turns away from the protection provided by Jesus, His blood, and His cross. That happened in Germany in the twentieth century, when the Germans began glorifying the Norse gods and occultism also spread throughout the Nazi spirit: the glorification of strength and power, and that secular philosophy of the superman, Nietzsche and others, that celebration of strength and glory and the power of a nation.

And then came the spirit of genocide, the spirit of death. They began by killing people with emotional problems, insanity, and different forms of dementia. They killed them all. They began killing the elderly; they began killing children born with birth defects; they began killing Roma and homosexuals. They began destroying all these things they did not like because they wanted only the perfection and beauty of that Nordic, Aryan race.

During the Second World War, the Japanese also began glorifying the spirit of war and strength, the spirit of the samurai, the spirit of the sun goddess and that Japanese goddess who is also a goddess of death, and they began celebrating those pagan gods. And when they took refuge in these gods, which are gods of death—and wherever those gods have had power and influence, as you can see throughout the centuries—the spirit of genocide and the spirit of death against children arise, as do the spirit of massacre and the spirit of destruction.

And that spirit of death, genocide, and destruction—and incidentally, we talk about the Nazis, but the Japanese were equally bloodthirsty; those people killed millions of people. The Americans dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki because they were so afraid of the Japanese that they did not want to fight them hand to hand, and so they decided, “We will send them a bomb from an altitude of 32,000 feet, and that way we will not have to deal with them hand to hand,” because there was a demonic spirit in that nation.

Wherever the diabolical spirit spreads and becomes strong, wherever the power of Jesus is absent—His blood, which defeated principalities and powers—you can be certain that in that place the devil will have room to manifest his bloodthirsty spirit. And among those he attacks are children, the fragile, and the weak. Amalek, that demonic spirit found in the Old Testament, always begins with the weakest. Look it up in the Bible: he always begins at the rear—with the elderly, the children, those at the back of the line. That is in the Bible, in the Old Testament; Amalek is a figure of the devil.

And wherever the devil has power, whatever guise he assumes, you will always see a spirit of death seeking to kill everything weak, everything fragile, everything that is not very, very strong. And I tell you again and again that the only thing that neutralizes that spirit of death is the power of Jesus Christ.

And that is what is happening in our culture here in Roxbury, in Mattapan, in Dorchester, and in the South End, in different ways. What is happening is precisely that this spirit of death is manifesting itself in different forms because it delights in bleeding, it delights in the shedding of blood, because that is what satisfies the evil spirit’s hunger and thirst for death.

And that is why I tell you that, during these coming months, what we must tell the people in our neighborhoods is: take refuge in Jesus Christ, because He truly is able to neutralize the power of the devil—the only one. And that is why one of the things Satan has sought to do is remove prayer from the schools, because when a school system appeals to the blood and the name of Jesus, demons do not have the strength to enter. But as soon as the name of Jesus is removed, death comes in and murder comes in.

And that is what the devil wants: to remove Christ from cultures. That is why he has sought to muzzle—now I am getting too far ahead in my sermon, but that is all right; the Lord will arrange it however He pleases. What the devil wants is for churches and Christians in this time to stop naming the only name that is above every name. When the Church abandons the name of Jesus and becomes proper, civil, and tolerant, and sacrifices ten thousand so as not to offend one or two, then that is what the devil wants. And that is why he intimidates us and emotionally bribes us so that we will not proclaim the name of Jesus, so that we will not proclaim the truth of Jesus, because he knows that this is the only thing that can remove the blindfold from the eyes of this society.

And the Church must not allow the devil to silence and muzzle it. We have to proclaim the name of Jesus and declare it in the streets, in the cities, in the neighborhoods, in the schools, in the universities, and in the hospitals. We must tell people that Christ is the only one able to do it, that they should take refuge in the name of Jesus because He is the only one who can protect the cultures, communities, neighborhoods, streets, and buildings of our cities. And we must never allow him to take that weapon away from us.

And he will try to do so through subtle doctrines of diversity, respect for diversity, and multicultural ideas, but that is the same diabolical lie of the serpent, seeking to take away the only weapon the Church has to heal the nations. We cannot allow it.

So we see this, right? In the Bible, the Christmas account speaks to us about another aspect of Christmas concerning children, and it tells us that Herod orders these children to be killed, and that mysterious being of Christmas is there as well. So we see, brothers and sisters, that alongside the biblical culture that celebrates children and families and protects children, there is also a parallel culture that despises children’s lives and kills them because it feels that its own adult interests are threatened.

Herod is interested in preserving his comfort, his powers, and his prerogative as dictator and king. When this child, who represents life, hope, and salvation, is born, Herod wants to continue with his ordinary life as a dictator and a great man of immense power and luxury, and so he wants to kill the child; he wants to suppress Him, right? In the Exodus account, Pharaoh wanted to kill all the Jewish boys as soon as they were born. Another genocide of children. Pharaoh ordered all the Jewish boys to be killed. Why? Because he, too, wanted to preserve his political privileges. He felt threatened that those Jewish boys might one day take away his authority.

The Jewish people were growing and becoming strong. God’s life was being born into the world through that tiny people, and God had a redemptive plan for that Jewish people that would heal many throughout history, through the Scriptures and through the birth of the Messiah who would come through the people of Israel. And he also wanted to kill that child Moses, who would be born as a redeemer.

Today the Jewish people are once again being persecuted, and these children—who knows whom the devil wanted to kill? He wants to kill someone, or several people, who are going to be born, take away his power in this time, and proclaim the Word of salvation. And he is also trying to kill and blind, and he rejoices in it; that is a holocaust, that is a sacrifice.

These children were not offered on a stone by a demonic priest with a stone knife cutting out their hearts. He does not care how they die; he cares about the shedding of blood. So that is a holocaust; that is a satanic sacrifice. The devil uses a possessed, damaged being who has been prepared by the culture of death, and then a sacrifice takes place, an offering of blood and life takes place, and he rejoices in the smell of blood rising from that sacrifice.

It is the spirit of death. It is the demonic spirit to which this culture is giving more and more room to manifest itself. In our time there are also two cultures: a culture of life and a culture of death. There are people in our time who still celebrate and value life: children and the elderly. And they see children and that culture of life as a gift from God; they see life as something sacred that must be celebrated and respected at all costs, as the Bible invites us to do. That is a culture of life.

But there is another culture of death in our time that regards life as expendable. We take it or leave it; we grab it or take it—something negotiable, something that can be manipulated and used according to convenience, circumstances, or the determinations of man rather than God. Through science, that culture examines and manipulates life with its microscopes, fluorescent lights, and other scientific instruments, and arrogantly determines what it wants to do with that life.

Today, as I was saying last Sunday, man has gained great control over human genetics. And that great control and that ability to examine the very structures, the very foundations of life through the study of cells—at the microscopic, biological, chemical, and electronic level of the human body—and the fact that he has decoded the genetic code and can now even manipulate that genetic code. Man has discovered the grammar of life; so with that grammar he now wants to create very interesting scientific sentences, and he wants to write his own story with the grammar of life.

He already knows: A-B-B-A-A-A-B-B; he already knows the vocabulary of genetics, and so now he thinks he has the power. So that power he has over human genetics, and that ever-growing knowledge of how the human brain and human neurology work, allow him to manipulate it and do whatever he wants with it. There is a saying in English: familiarity breeds contempt. When you become familiar with something, you know, you lose respect for it.

That friend who fascinated you when you were just beginning to get to know each other, after you have spent too much time with him, becomes simply one more person. Because when you become familiar with something, you lose your reverence for it. So because modern man is so familiar with life, the sacred, mysterious, absolutely untouchable nature of life loses its hold over him.

So nowadays it should not surprise us that man says, “This one may live; this one may not. That one is important; the other is not.” That is what will continue to grow in this nation. As this nation and the Western world accumulate more and more power and knowledge, life will become something highly negotiable, very ordinary, and very banal, because man will believe that he now understands that life is simply a thing.

Brother, if you believe that you were born from a cosmic accident, as science believes nowadays—that you came not from a monkey, because before that you were simply cosmic soup sitting there in the ocean, and by chance an electrical discharge occurred and something was born that later evolved until it became this marvelous being that you and I are—if you believe that, then how important can life be?

I sometimes wonder: How can people—these scientists—be so rationally inconsistent as to say that life is sacred if its origins are so banal? Once you have abandoned the idea that God created this phenomenon called man and woman, you are out in open terrain; you know, it’s a free-for-all, it’s a no-man’s-land. There you have to defend every little thing you call sacred; then let no one tell me why I have to respect life, why we should not simply create our own ethical principles and systems concerning who lives and who dies.

Then everything is up for grabs. Why should I pay 500,000 dollars to preserve the life of a deformed baby if, with those 500,000 dollars, I could feed 800 Africans or Latin Americans in a Brazilian favela or an African village—unless one has another grammar, namely, that life is sacred? If God gives me that creature so that I may bring it into life, why do so many doctors tell people to abort a baby simply because it has a birth defect? Because that is a burden on society, and because modern man has that freedom—he grants himself the freedom to choose.

Whereas the society that loves life says, “To me, this is a mystery; I do not know what to do here. This is God’s life; I cannot kill it simply on the basis of a mathematical calculation of who is worth more and who is worth less.” That is what you see when you love life: you see that it is a mystery. And that dear old man you see sitting there, his skin like parchment and already almost transparent, has the life of God within him, and I must care for him, love him, and protect him until the very last second. Whereas if you merely make mathematical and scientific calculations, that creature is a burden to society and must be disposed of as quickly as possible. Stop giving him medicine, because he is taking the place of 20 young people who could receive scholarships for their university studies. Do you understand what I am saying?

When man makes himself all-powerful, he is the one who assumes the right to make decisions, and that is what shapes the culture, and that is the culture in which we find ourselves. That is the culture that, through science, has made itself master over life and views it as something commonplace. So we see many things.

The abortion on demand that we see in our culture is an example of that culture of death, in which more than forty million—almost fifty million—have died. Next year, 2013, is the anniversary year, the fortieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which opened this society to abortion on demand. In those forty years, almost fifty million children have been cut down in their mothers’ wombs. And what began simply as something reserved for emergencies and circumstances of absolutely critical urgency has now become what we know as partial-birth abortion, in which a little child, even after partially emerging from his mother’s body, can still be killed. Do you understand?

Because that is how the devil works: he begins little by little, and then he keeps broadening and spreading his culture of death more and more until it leads to the massacre we have seen, until it also leads to the genocide of thirteen million—or six million—Jews. When you look at Nazi culture, how was it able to kill millions of Jews through a perfected industry? The Nazis did not kill more people because they lost the war too soon, but I had the privilege of going to Auschwitz recently when I was over there in Slovakia, and I went to Poland and was able to see the Nazi concentration camps. That is something that blows anyone’s mind.

How could a culture devote itself to killing thousands of people a day, practically like an efficient machine of death, brothers? The most developed culture—German culture—was, and is, a tremendously cultured society, and that culture gave birth to the Nazi genocide. Because when cultures surrender themselves to the spirit of death, that spirit enters and begins to establish its mentality throughout all the structures of society, as it is doing in this culture.

And those of us here think, “No, that could never happen here.” It can happen here, ladies and gentlemen. And that is why we must ask the Lord to give us the prophetic voice to proclaim what is happening and awaken this culture that has gone after the spirit of death, and to tell it where it is heading so that at least people will have no excuse, and to try to save as many people as we possibly can.

But that culture of abortion is an example of what the culture of death is. Consider the effort to establish legal, physician-assisted suicide that we recently saw in Massachusetts. Who would have thought ten years ago that in the United States, in Massachusetts—the land of the Puritans, where these people came to worship the true God—this culture would debate whether an elderly person should be allowed to take his own life by buying at CBS a pill with which to kill himself, assisted by a doctor who gave him the prescription?

That proposal lost by a hair because the Catholic Church, the Evangelical Church, and other churches united to denounce that scandal. Because this is what happens: the devil begins with something very small, and then, once the culture has grown accustomed to the temperature, he turns it up a little more. And after they have grown accustomed to that, he turns it up a little more. Little by little, this culture will begin killing people with disabilities; it will begin killing the elderly. It will keep looking for many ways to do it. In time, perhaps the mother, as in Communist China, will not have the option of choosing.

Do you know that right now, in Communist China and in many Asian countries, millions of girls—girls—are dying because it is a culture that wants baby boys? And so, when a family is allowed to have only one child and a little girl is born, what they want is a boy, and they kill that girl, you know, or abort her. In Communist China, there are millions of children, and people have no choice; if a family has more than a certain number of children—I believe it is one or two—they are hit with a tremendous fine and can even go to prison.

So just imagine China right now: how many millions of children are being cut down by the culture of death? In this country, we are not far behind. One day a doctor will say to you, “You know what, ma’am? No, you cannot have that little child because he has a genetic defect and will be a burden on society, so you must abort him.” That is perfectly conceivable given where we are now; later it will be even greater things, because that is how the culture is: it does not value life. It says it values life, but ultimately it is the demonic spirit behind all of this that wants to consume life, because in this respect it is a psychopath that takes pleasure simply in killing, stealing, and destroying.

Consider the contempt for the elderly that we see in the media. How many elderly people? Nowadays, people make fun of the elderly in movies. I see it so often that I ask myself, “How do people dare to mock the elderly that way?” We see a culture that glorifies youth, glorifies beauty, and glorifies strength. Oh, Church, I tell you personally, perhaps it is because of my old age or whatever it may be—I do not know—but I think there is something wrong with churches made up only of young people. I believe that young people, old people, and adults should be together, blessing one another.

Young people need the counsel of the old, and the old need the vigor, strength, joy, and laughter of the young; and the generations in the churches must mix, brothers. Personally, I do not recommend that any young person join a church made up only of young people with young pastors. A pastor may be young, but these young people here devour one another. Those genes of youth, which also have their dangerous side, merely make them reinforce one another more and more, and they do not have the wisdom that comes from time, experience, and the wounds of life; those things give people a certain wisdom. And they need to hear that as well; they need to listen to the old, to the elderly, and to the adults, and receive from them.

But this culture glorifies youth, glorifies strength, glorifies bulging biceps, and wants nothing to do with frailty or old age. And that is another example. When cultures become cultures of death, that is also what they do. They glorify youth, strength, and muscles, and they denigrate frailty and old age, because that is what the demonic, satanic spirit does. Satan is a god of power; what he likes is power, not frailty. Frailty can be loved only by a God of Grace and Mercy, not by a god of death and convenience.

Sexual abuse—forgive me, because I am laying out certain prophetic matters here, brothers. If I am dwelling at length on this negative part of the sermon, it is because it needs to be denounced, and I am also declaring it into the spiritual atmosphere, not only to you and to ourselves. The sexual abuse of children that we see in these times—pedophilia—is a crime and is also an epidemic of our time, because the devil loves to harm and corrupt childhood and innocence. That is part of what a psychopathic, sociopathic, sick spirit does. It likes to see something innocent and deflower it, stripping away its beauty. That is increasing in our culture, and it is another example of the culture of death in which we live.

The growing number of massacres of children, like what happened on Friday at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, is simply another example of that culture of death, which continues to become more powerful, more palpable, and less disguised in our time. Why are you surprised by what happened there, if this is what we should expect from this culture of death?

I grieve in my soul. This morning, as I was preparing this sermon, I forced myself to read about this massacre for the first time because I did not want to enter that abyss; it breaks my heart, and I compelled myself to do it because I needed to speak to you about this in an informed way, but my heart is bleeding. Yet I want to tell you that, just as I tell you that it pains me in my soul and that I do not even want to think too much about those parents for whom Christmas has now been ruined forever, at the same time I ask you: Why be surprised, if this is what is continually happening in this nation’s hospitals? That is what is happening in many homes where children are sexually abused. That is what is happening even in the living rooms of our homes when our children watch pornography that we allow them to see because we have channels we should not have and do not supervise what they watch.

When we allow them to listen to deadly filth, and we ourselves consume it, why should we be surprised, if it is the same thing, the same spirit of death killing in different ways? Satan does not care whether he kills with a revolver, a law, a television program, a movie, or a message over the Internet; it is all death in different forms. Do not be surprised when it comes through a revolver, because death comes in many ways: a pill, an accident, a fall into a ditch, an illness. The devil is the father of death, and he manifests his energy however he pleases.

So I encourage you, even as you grieve with these people, not to be surprised or go home all—what for? This is what we are living through, and we must see the connection between these different things, reject it, and then live as people of light and truth, do you understand? But this will keep happening, and it will happen in greater ways until they realize what god they have made a pact with, and hopefully they will repent.

Meche and I are constantly talking about how these attacks against children, these kidnappings and murders of children, are becoming increasingly frequent in our culture. Look at the news and you will see that it is constantly children. Mothers who kill their children. Fathers who murder their children. Mothers—something that used to be inconceivable. The Bible says, “Can a mother forget the child she has borne?” Well, not only do they forget them, but they also kill them.

Parents murder their children. Parents neglect their children. Nowadays, fathers—men who despise the privilege of being a father—go around doing whatever they please, leave home, and abandon their children as though they were garbage because they have grown tired of them or of the woman who gave birth to them. They excuse that, and then they go back to another church that will keep telling them that God loves them. God loves them, but they need to repent, brothers and sisters. A man who despises his children and his home deserves God’s punishment—forgive me for putting it that way. Life must be respected, and God makes us parents for a reason and a purpose; we cannot neglect our children.

So we are seeing attacks, kidnappings, rapes, and the neglect of children, because that is what the culture of death does. This modern culture has become a culture of death. Do you know why? Because, often without realizing it, people have abandoned the God of life and fallen into the hands and under the control of the spirit of death, whose name is Satan.

The words of the prophet Jeremiah came to mind, in Jeremiah chapter 2, verses 11 through 13, where God spoke to His nation, the Israelites, when they had turned away from Him and abandoned themselves to the culture of death, sacrifices to idols, and all these things. Before driving them from their nation and taking them into exile, the Lord says to them through Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 2:11: “Has any nation ever changed its gods, even though they are not gods?”

God was appalled that this nation, which knew Him, the true God, was exchanging Him for a false god of death. And God says, “Where has anything like this ever been seen?” He says, “Yet My people have exchanged their glory for that which does not profit.” This nation has known the true God, yet it is turning away from that God. And what terrifies me most is that the Evangelical Church itself in this nation is turning away from its God, following doctrines of error, listening to the serpent’s voice, and abandoning and surrendering everything that can protect it in order to make itself more attractive to this culture of death.

And that is also something biblical: the apostasy I spoke to you about last Sunday. But Jeremiah says, “My people have exchanged their glory for that which does not profit.” Then verse 12 says, “Be appalled at this, O heavens, and be horrified.” In other words, He says, “Heavens and earth”—because He calls heaven and earth as witnesses—“behold this phenomenon: a nation that abandons the God of life for the god of death, the true God for the god of lies.”

He says, “Be astonished, be horrified, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, for My people have committed two evils. First, they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and dug for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold water.” The people—and this is what this nation is doing—are exchanging the God of life for the god of death, the God of the water of life that flows and springs up into eternal life, for a foul-smelling cistern where the water goes nowhere but simply leaks out—to use a good word from our times.

A cistern produces foul odors, death, and germs because it does not flow anywhere. So this culture is exchanging the God of joy, life, peace, order, harmony, and protection for a god that only wants to devour it, like Jupiter eating his children. And that is the choice, the option this nation is taking; it should not tremble, lament, or be surprised at what is happening to it.

When a culture turns away from God, do you know what happens? Among other important things, the interests of children are pushed aside, and whose interests take their place? Those of adults. The culture of life sacrifices itself for children; the culture of death sacrifices children for itself. And if you analyze what is happening—the phenomenon we are experiencing—that is what is going on.

A culture of life revolves around children and the family—that family, that home, which feeds them, prepares them, nurtures them, and shapes them for life. What happens in the culture of death is that adults set aside—rather, in the culture of life, adults set aside their own interests so that children may prosper, be blessed, and take their place in the world. In cultures of life, adults value those new creatures who are being born, and so they devote themselves completely, work, and stay together.

There was a time in this culture and in other cultures when families and couples, even though they wanted to separate, stayed together for the children. Nowadays, that has been lost. Nowadays, look, if I fall out of love with my wife or my wife falls out of love with me, we immediately begin undermining the foundations of the marriage so we can kick it aside at any moment and say, “Ah, it was her fault; it was his fault.”

Cultures of life devote themselves completely and make a covenant: our children are sacred; we must defend them. We must put them among our highest priorities; this has to work. And the father and the mother both do it. Today there are many men who want the woman to bear the entire burden, and I want to be clear about that, brother. Let us be men of life and not of death; let us love our wives and love our children, let us love our marriage, and do whatever you have to do so that your children and your family do not suffer. That is extremely important; we will speak more about it later.

Cultures of death put their adults, their rights, and their passions first, and children are sacrificed so that adults can live their lives however they want—comfortably, financially, circumstantially. Their careers are more important than their children. Their personal well-being. Why does a woman nowadays feel free to have an abortion? Because that is my womb, my uterus, my belly; that is my real estate. I hold the title deed, and I do whatever I want with my womb; no one tells me what I have to do with it. That is the truth; that is the culture of death, isn’t it?

So the spirit of death, the satanic spirit, delights in the destruction and sacrifice of children’s lives, the sacrifice of the purity that God loves and values so greatly. That is why, in many pagan and primitive cultures dominated by the demonic spirit, the sacrifice of children has always been included as a distinctive element of their religious rites. Nowadays, anthropologists in the mountains of Peru and Bolivia discover child sacrifices, skeletons of children who were sacrificed.

The Mayan and Aztec cultures and all the indigenous cultures of Latin America were cultures in which they sacrificed children; they sacrificed men and women. Because the demonic spirit that rules those cultures where the light of Christ has not dawned upon them—or where it dawned and they rejected it—always brings back the culture of death, violence, and genocide, because the satanic spirit is a spirit of death. That is Satan’s delight. He is like a psychopath who kills serially and coldly because his only pleasure is killing: seeing life go out in the eyes of someone he is killing, seeing a person’s groan of pain. And he does it because he cannot do anything else.

And wherever the spirit of death is given freedom, that is what happens, whatever form it takes. It may be through genocide, as in Nazi culture; it may be through abortion, as in our culture; it may be through slavery, as there was in the South and in so many countries, where people were enslaved. Because, in many ways, people surrendered themselves to a spirit of death, because the word of tenderness and love from Jesus—the crucified Christ, the Christ who gives Himself so that there may be life, who sacrifices Himself—is not received and is rejected.

So we have to understand that, don’t we? All these primitive pagan cultures dominated by the demonic spirit have always been characterized by child sacrifice. Why did God drive the pagan nations out of Canaan? Because, among other things, they practiced this: homosexuality, sacred prostitution, and the sacrifice of children to Molech. That is why God destroyed Samaria and forbade that city from ever being rebuilt: because of child sacrifice. Does child sacrifice unleash satanic power?

That is why many occult groups here in the United States sacrifice children. What is more, they raise women to have children who are never registered, and they give birth outside the medical system so that they can sacrifice those children to Satan. That is happening in these times, here in this nation. Because wherever the satanic spirit of death is present, there is the destruction of life, and Satan’s delight is the destruction of the fragile, pure, simple life of a baby. That is the greatest desecration of all, and this culture is giving that spirit of death freedom. That is why worse things will come unless God stretches out His hand and intervenes in very powerful ways.

Nowadays, people do not want to have children. One of the things expected in the coming years, according to the latest reports being produced by the United Nations—one came out this weekend, and I was reading it—is that, among the many developments and things expected to happen in the Western world over the coming decades, the Western population will continue to decline. In the United States, Australia, Canada, and Western Europe, white people and highly educated people do not want to have children, and therefore the Western population will continue to decline.

Who are the ones having children here in the United States? We Latinos are. That is why we are filling the United States with children, because the birth rate among Hispanics in the United States is still much higher than that of Black people, white people—everyone. If they do not want to have the children, we will have them for them.

That is why many of these white people are afraid of these cultures, because who are the ones having the children? Asians, Black people, and Latinos; everyone else does not want to have children. That is how it is, brother; do you understand? That is the culture in which we currently live.

Do you know that France, Holland, Germany, and England are filling up with Muslims? And they know that one way to defeat these nations is by filling them with Muslims. That is why there must be a culture of having many children. Conservative Hebrews in Israel are the only ones having children. The Israelis—the secular Jews of Israel—do not want to have children, so the Orthodox Hebrews are saying, “You know what? We are going to have children,” and they are having children left and right—six, eight, ten, twelve children per family—to fill Israel with people who fear God, and they are succeeding.

The fact is that rational, Western, industrialized, highly developed cultures think with the mind; they do not think with the heart or the spirit, and so what they do is give the devil room to keep doing as he pleases. That is also why, men, you must make your home a suitable place for having children. Let your wives not be afraid to have children, but let them feel safe having their children, because that is so important, isn’t it? Let us make sure of that, so the home will be a safe home where the woman and the man say, “You know what? We want children to be born in this land because it is a beautiful, fertile, and peaceful land.”

That is very important. So let me finish with this diagnosis, because I want to put it on record, whoever may be listening to me. Homosexual marriage in our times, which sacrifices children for the sake of adults’ passions and sexual addictions, also represents that culture of death. Why? Because nowadays lesbians and homosexuals say, “You know what? I want to live my life however I want.” They say it is because they cannot do otherwise, but no; ultimately, it is because they do not want to.

And so, you know what? Let us give them two mothers or two fathers. God defined the family as a man and a woman, okay? And in order to be born into a balanced and suitable home, children must have the example of a woman and a man, because that is what makes a complete human being: a father who loves, nurtures, protects, and provides, and a mother who shelters, gives affection, and reflects God’s love in an unsurpassable way.

Families need the courage of men and the courage of women; societies need men and women. Men being men and women being women, together living the life God has created in this universe. When you put only two men or two women into a household, run away, because there is evil in that—I say it sincerely. And nowadays these people are saying, “No, it’s fine”; that is a lie. God created the family with a man and a woman so that they would model the complexity of God, what it means to be a man and to be a woman.

Nowadays these people are sacrificing those children, and many of those children will indeed become lesbians and homosexuals, or they will grow up very distorted because they do not have the modeling of a man and a woman that they need, because that is how God designed it. Nowadays we want to invent something else and dress up the corpse with clothes and makeup, but it is a corpse, and it remains a corpse, and sooner or later it is going to smell bad, you know?

But nowadays we are allowing those things. I am sick and tired of keeping quiet. We have to speak the truth. If you do not like it, go to another church, because that is the truth, brother, you know? (applause).

Now, I always say that I welcome everyone who is struggling, because we have all kinds of people here—there is everything here—and we are all struggling with our own bondages. But glory to God that we know they are bondages and that we are seeking redemption and healing through Christ Jesus. So come, join the refugees; all of us here are refugees seeking deliverance from the only one who can give it to us, Christ Jesus. Join us as well.

We love everyone who struggles with different addictions. I love the person who struggles with pornography; I love the person who struggles with prostitution; I love the person who struggles with evil thoughts; I love the person who struggles with alcoholism; I love the person who struggles with drugs; I love the person who struggles with anger, depression and anxiety, and with abusing his wife. Come, take refuge in Christ; seek healing from Him, because all of that is sin, and only Christ offers healing for all those things. That is all. There are no distinctions.

We are not going to call one thing sin and another one not sin. If it is sin, it must be called by its name, and then, yes, the grace of Christ covers you, the love of Christ covers you; come and take refuge in Him as well, right? But we are placing all those adult addictions upon the children and sacrificing them; we cannot do that. This premature sexual education of children. Nowadays children are taught: “Hey, do you feel attracted to another little boy? Well, that’s fine, don’t worry; explore your homosexuality, it’s fine.” That is what teachers are teaching.

Nowadays a teacher is forbidden to tell a five- or seven-year-old child who is experiencing attractions toward the other sex that this is wrong. On the contrary, the teacher is told, “No, it must be affirmed.” They must tell the child that it is fine, that there is no problem, and they must even teach the child at an early age how to express his homosexual sexuality and give him the mechanisms and instruments of the practical instruction he needs to be a good homosexual. That is the culture of death.

That culture prematurely sexualizes children through the media. Little girls dressed prematurely, with little braids, lipstick, and all that filth, hypersexualizing them. The internet. All of this is the spirit of death in this culture, moving like a snake slithering through the waters of this culture until it reaches people’s sensitivities and hearts, and adults are cooperating with it. The judicial systems, the public health agencies, the schools. Why are the schools the way they are? Because the school system is fostering the culture of death, and then they are surprised that their children kill one another and shoot one another in the streets, in the gangs, and that girls are getting pregnant every day at younger and younger ages, and that young boys are becoming sexual predators.

Why are you surprised? Why do you lament it if you are the ones causing it through your own evil teaching? A culture of death and darkness. Why be surprised if you are giving someone a suicide pill and then, when they commit suicide, you lament it? You give the person a suicide pill and then you want to take it away and give him a painkiller when his stomach hurts because of the pill he took, which you gave him. That is the madness of modern man, and the Church must denounce it left and right. We have to tell them: I am mad, I am not going to take it anymore.

Video games of death and violence. Brothers and sisters, do not allow your children and young people—please, guys, stop cultivating these images of death in your video games. A Christian, a child of God, a young person who loves the Lord should not be looking at these images of death and violence. You are glorifying the spirit of death and violence. Stop doing that for your own good; you are contaminating your mind with all kinds of dark, destructive impulses.

Who is doing the killing nowadays? It is young people. This young man was twenty years old, and many of these boys who are killing are twenty, twenty-four, eighteen, or sixteen years old. Columbine, the massacre in that movie theater—it is young people who are doing it. They are being desensitized to death by videos.

Rap music. I have nothing against rap music if it is wholesome, biblical music that glorifies Jesus Christ, but any music that glorifies sex, violence, the violation of women, the murder of police officers, and respect for authority is music of death, and no Christian, no child of God, should be listening to those things. It is that simple, period, end of story.

If you consider yourself a Christian, a child of God, a person who glorifies Jesus, His love, His grace, His tenderness, and His affirmation of life, you should not be dancing to or listening to any kind of music that glorifies violence, rape, sexuality that is not under the covering of God, disrespect for authority, the killing of police officers, or the killing of anything—any life, any living being. That is not of God, and if you consume it, you are communing with the spirit of death, darkness, and hell. You should stop it and should not do it.

And in our homes, again, we must not consume filth, pornography, or things that glorify the spirit of the devil, which our children then see after they saw Dad watching it at three in the morning when they got up to drink water or go to the bathroom. Be careful; give those things up. Your house is sacred; your home is sacred. Do not consume that on the internet, on television, on your phone, or anywhere else. Get it out, because you are communicating and communing with the spirit of death.

The times are clear, and we have to be clear in the way we proclaim the truth, right? We have to be different, brothers and sisters. We have to preserve, reinforce, and celebrate a culture of life. I know you are a little tired of this material, but let me—amen, thank you (applause). And I tell you, in the Christmas story, the life of Christ is celebrated, not the death of the devil. Celebrate Christ, not Herod.

Now I will finish with this. Look, how can we create a culture of life? I am going to give you some specific things: as a church, as families, and as individuals, how can we be a culture of life? First: let us celebrate childhood. Let us care for our children and devote time and resources to them as a church through our programs and ministries. I thank the Lord because we as a church are doing quite a lot—not everything we should, but still, I want to—I rejoice to know that our church is fertile ground for many children who come here to receive an antidote to the culture of death.

Our children need to be inoculated against the culture of violence, unbridled sexuality, death, respect for authority, and respect for God and His principles; and love for the Lord, worship, a consecrated life, and the Word of God are being instilled in them. As a church, we must continue doing that. Men, do not leave it only to women to volunteer in the Bible school; we need men there. We need women who are members of the congregation.

Many people say, “No, but when I come to church, that is the only time I have.” Look, make a sacrifice; offer the Lord a burnt offering. Take two or three weeks and devote them to the children upstairs, and let that contribute to making our church a church that values children. We have to do more and more for the children and for our youth, so that they can truly withstand that wave of evil out there.

So, Church, let us value children and give whatever we need to give, because children are under attack and persecution in our time. Second: do you know what? Let us have children. Let us not see them as an obstacle. Let us not see them as an obstacle; let us see them as a blessing. Forgive me if I am meddling. I know that this is sometimes a delicate subject for couples, but I am merely guided by what the Bible says. I am not saying that you now have to have a whole string of children; God will tell you that. But let us love children and value children. Let us not see children as an obstacle.

If they are born, let us thank God for them and give them a great welcome into the world, you know? However they come. I have always believed that: if a child is born, I am going to bless him and say, “Welcome to Earth.” That is why I cannot be there either, and look, if the child was born, welcome and bless him, and make sure that he is welcomed and does not experience rejection from you or from the Church. Whatever the case may be, we are a church; we love life, and if the child is there, we are going to bless him, however he is born. Whatever it may be, if it comes from God, it must be embraced and protected.

Another thing: let us stop viewing large families as something aberrant and strange, and let us celebrate them. I celebrate those missionaries who are having eight and ten children—amen, may God help and bless them. Others look at it as though saying, “Oh! How irresponsible—they are having so many children.” Look, leave those people alone; may God bless them and give them wisdom. They are missionaries; they are a message, a sign to this selfish culture. That is why Hispanic culture is a blessing: because we give this selfish culture a sign that children are a blessing from God, and that is a message that must be given in these times.

Fourth, listen carefully to this, all right? Let us not practice abortion, and let us oppose abortion in all its forms with all our strength. We do not have the right to play with human life. This nation has killed almost fifty million children, and that holocaust is going to cost this nation dearly, because it is the same kind of sacrifice of life that we see in the Nazi Holocaust, in Japan, in slavery and the death of African slaves, and in the Spanish Inquisition in Spain and other parts of Europe, which killed so many Jews and so many people.

In all of that, the devil is given freedom because the mighty Spirit of Jesus and His blood are not in control; death and genocide come. Therefore, we cannot join in abortion and say that it is fine. If you have somehow fallen into some error and are pregnant or whatever the case may be, look: turn to God and let God have mercy, and then submit to the grace of the Lord, but do not have an abortion. Nowadays abortion is a matter of convenience, and it is something we do simply because, “Oh! I made a mistake, and I am not going to have a child now,” and it is a source of shame or an inconvenience. Let us not practice abortion, and let us oppose abortion. Let us tell young mothers that instead of aborting their children, they should have their little child and let God bless and honor them for their faithfulness and integrity—and God will do it.

Another thing: let us never harm a child in any way. Do not abuse a child sexually, physically, or emotionally. Children are sacred; they belong to the Father. And man, never abuse a child. Never, in any way, should we abuse a child, an elderly person, a person with mental disabilities, or anyone else—none of that. Do not abuse. We are people of life, love, tenderness, and protection. We defend life in whatever form it takes. Wherever there is weakness, the child of God should be there strengthening and supporting, not abusing, not causing harm.

Another thing: let us devote a great deal of time to our families. This is one of the most important things I can tell you. How can we be a culture of life as a church? Let us devote a great deal of time to our families: to the health of our families, to cultivating our marriages, to the well-being of our children, and to spending time together. Let us create a home of harmony, blessing, and peace, where the Word of the Lord abounds, where there is good music, and where there are values of forgiveness, good communication, truth, and justice. May our family, our home, be a nurturing place in which to raise our children.

Cultivate family time. The family is under a terrible threat right now; make sure you strengthen your homes. Young people, strengthen your homes. Let us sacrifice whatever we have to sacrifice so that our children grow up healthy and happy. Let us avoid divorce whenever it is at all possible. I know that sometimes there are situations—and unfortunately women suffer greatly in this regard; the truth must be told—when we drive women to a point where they have to leave because of physical abuse and so many things they suffer at the hands of men.

And for the most part, that is how it is. I say it with sorrow in my soul. I know that there are many, and there are some who ought to be here to hear this, because I know how they behave. But let us sacrifice whatever we have to sacrifice so that our children may grow up healthy and happy.

Nowadays there are many couples who are not fighting as hard as they should to preserve their marriages, and their children are the ones who pay the price afterward. Do everything possible to remain together as a family.

Men, let us sacrifice our appetites for the sake of our homes, so that they may be places of peace and stability. Men nowadays grow tired of one woman, of one marriage, and go looking for another fresh young woman, only to do the same thing again. And there are men who are serial rapists; they go from one house to another, from one home to another, from one relationship to another. That is of the devil; that is a culture of death. If you have had children, bless them, support them, cover them with your fatherly protection, grit your teeth, and hold on tooth and nail so that your home does not break apart and your children do not then go around from one father to another in a pattern. Let us sacrifice our lives for our marriages, for our homes.

And couples, do everything possible to remain together so that your children do not have to endure the pain of watching their parents divorce. And let us make our homes places of Christian spiritual values. Let us do everything possible to remove music, videos, images, and conduct that are not of God; let us banish them from our homes. The Church also has much to do—not only the people out there at whom we throw stones, but we ourselves as well.

But I ask the Lord: Father, help us to be a people of life and to understand how one thing is connected to another, and may we be people of love, mercy, peace, tenderness, forgiveness, and grace, so that this world may have a model to follow; and may we proclaim God’s Truth in difficult times, because what is needed is a prophetic people who speak God’s Truth and apply it to themselves.

Let us stand, and brothers and sisters, receive this Word in your hearts; receive God’s Truth. I myself have to apply many of the things I am preaching, you know? But God, in His Mercy, sustains us. And Father, we confess the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the spirit of Christmas, the spirit of the helpless, fragile child in swaddling clothes whom You valued and whom You wanted to be born that way in order to tell us that the power of God can dwell in a fragile creature, in a family, a man and a woman: Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah. And we want that to be so, Lord.

Fill this Church with the Spirit of life; we want to be a Church of life, Father, one that offers people refuge. May they be able to look through the windows and see a blessed, prosperous people, full of joy, and say: I want to be part of that family. Begin with us, Lord. Give us a prophetic Word; give us the spirit of love for the weak, the defenseless, and the fragile, and help us to be people of love and mercy.

Have mercy on this land and on this world, Father. Bless those families who have lost their loved ones, Father. Bless the community of Newtown, Connecticut, and enter that place of terrible pain, loss, and mourning at this time, Lord; and may Your Grace somehow, mysteriously, be made manifest in that place now, Father. Thank You because You have called us to light and not to darkness, to life and not to death. Thank You for Christ, who paid with His death so that today we might have life.

We love You, we bless You, we thank You in the mighty name of Jesus. And the people of God say: Amen. God bless you, my brothers and sisters. May His Grace be with you.