Christian Reasons With Atheist

Apologia Utah

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00:01

Stop snatching children from their actual mom's arms. So kill them, kill them, or let the parent keep them?

00:09

Yes, yes. Kill them or keep them? OK. And so we want the entire life of the child, as long as they'll have us.

00:26

And we support them. We pay for their rent. We'll get them a car. We bring them food. We work with another organization that's just getting ready to start up called

00:33

Mercy Moms, who just take, they're all women. They take great care of these moms that we're helping. We saved a lot of babies last year.

00:39

Yeah, we're not here to protest or judge or condemn anybody.

00:45

I will ask you a question. I'm very open to hearing. I've never been pregnant.

00:51

I'm on birth control. I got it from here, so that's my priors. I don't think I'm right to be a mother, so I'm like, it's just not for me.

01:00

So yeah, well, what do you think you're getting by calling women murderers? I think that's a very emotionally charged thing.

01:06

I think it's a hard choice. I don't think it's easy. My mom's pregnancy with me was unplanned. It really derailed her.

01:13

She was religious, so she opted to do nothing. But I think, honestly, she didn't have a lot of other options, if I'm going to be honest, in her community.

01:23

So yeah, do you think that this could really be poking the bear and just getting people like me?

01:32

It is. It is. People hate that kind of language. I would agree with you. What we do, though, is, like your mother, we're evangelical

01:39

Christians. We believe in the word of God. We believe in the Bible. Well, she was Mormon, so you might think she's in hell now.

01:44

So, you know. I hope not. I think it's a little bit of a war here. I hope not. And I'm not the judge of anybody. I do know that if she put her faith in Jesus Christ and believed that he lived a perfect life and died the death that she deserved, then

01:56

I believe your mom. Well, she died a horrible death of cancer, so you know. Yeah, Jesus died a horrible death on the cross, but he was innocent.

02:02

You know what I mean? We're all guilty sinners, myself probably among the chief of them, like Paul would say.

02:08

But what I would say to answer your question. As someone who's non -religious, it's always interesting to you. I believe everybody's a little bit religious.

02:15

I do a lot of financial counseling. I tell people, I can show you your God if you show me your checkbook, right?

02:21

It might be going out to eat. It might be entertainment. It might be. Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy.

02:27

There you go. That's a good thing. But to answer your question specifically. Yes, I guess that would just be my feedback from the other side, is that I think

02:34

I'm with you, that our society doesn't support right now. But even if we take

02:39

God out of it, and I have a hard time doing that, because you know my presupposition. I'm a Christian. But even if we take him out of it, we have science and biology that says life begins at conception, right?

02:49

We have a constitution. So I'm curious, are you against birth control? I think that's the best choice for me. I'm not going to be a virgin the rest of my life.

02:55

I am against all birth control that is abortifacient. And what that means is once conception has happened, and once all the

03:02

DNA is present, once all the chromosomes are present, if that birth control is designed to take that life, yes,

03:08

I am against that. It's always odd to me, all this stormy strong about gay sex.

03:15

And I just don't think that there's any really great, even like, I just don't think Jesus himself really cared that much.

03:22

So it's something my alma mater, I went down to BYU. They have very strict standards.

03:28

In Matthew 7 or 28, where he said that a man and a woman, let them join together and become one flesh, that's pretty strong.

03:35

But also that would kind of imply things like being sexually promiscuous outside marriage,

03:42

I think, is a very, I don't think so. I think it's fine. So I will never see eye to eye with you on that.

03:49

Probably not, but I take in the Lord's name in vain. One lie, the book of Revelation says that all liars will have their place in the lake of fire.

03:57

So I told my son, who's standing right there, that Santa Claus was real for like eight years. I'm a liar, right?

04:03

But on dang Santa Claus, I should have been getting the credit anyway. Those were my toys. My mom was very principled on this, she never lied, and I still am.

04:10

That's how holy God is? Your mom never told you that? Did I hear you correctly? I did not claim that.

04:16

I said she had her principles around Santa. I got you. It's a little weird to throw my dead cancer mom under the bus, but yeah.

04:22

Oh, I'm so sorry. And I sympathize with you. Yeah, no, like I said, it's a very personal topic to me as a woman, as someone who did see her mom struggle a lot.

04:32

I think she had really severe postpartum depression. Was it talked about at the time? I don't know, she never said, but I mean, she wasn't functioning.

04:39

Well, back then, my mom and your mom, probably around the same generation, they just dealt with stuff.

04:44

You know what I mean? True. They sucked it up. You couldn't get it out on Facebook. They did. They were a tough generation.

04:50

They were, especially her mother, who always worked and lived in this very conservative society.

04:56

Yeah, but if you take anything from this, just know that Jesus Christ, honestly, I know you can laugh, but he did come to save cities.

05:04

And the simplest lie, being angry at my spouse, or talking quarrelsomely, or gossiping, these are all minor things, because we like to judge ourselves according to the next person or our neighbor.

05:19

Jesus takes my advice, I think, calling people murderers is just out of the video. See the lady over there with the babies are murdered here sign?

05:26

She has had three abortions. I would encourage you to talk to her and ask her what she would follow.

05:31

She wishes that there were people out there holding that sign. It's murder, and I understand that.

05:40

We're hoping we'll get that one day, yes. The definition of murder is taken from - Often it comes on the pregnant women themselves, and I think, hopefully, people from both sides can agree that that's probably not the right way.

05:54

I mean, often I think, yeah, you don't get pregnant without a man, so I always find it odd that people like me are really targeted and judged,

06:04

I think, by conservative Christians in a way that I don't feel like men. I don't think general society is as,

06:11

I think it's very liberalized. Well, general society nowadays is - It agrees with me, let's be honest. My views are considered more mainstream.

06:19

But 200 years ago, you could own a black person, and society said, that's okay. Yep. And in Nazi Germany, you could kill a

06:26

Jew, and society said, that's okay. So taking society's temperature and using it as morality, when we have the word of God as our standard that is unchanging, that's what

06:36

I would say, is question that, you know, society - Well, Christians owned slaves.

06:42

They did. And participated in the Holocaust, some of them. So I just find it very odd to think that Christians have any moral authority over someone like me.

06:50

We don't, we don't. We know that we're sinners. Then why should I listen to you? The word of God does. Yeah. You're so dumb. Because, and that's what -

06:56

Like, it truly just doesn't compute to me. I know good Mormons, I know piece of shit

07:01

Mormons, I know good Christians, I know piece of shit Christians, I know good atheists, I know piece of shit atheists. And so how do you judge that standard?

07:08

By what standard do you say good and bad? You shall know them, right? Like, by your actions. So by the word of God. By the word of God.

07:14

I don't believe it, I can quote it. It's literature as well. But see, you're using good and bad and evil, and you know, you're using these words, and these words have meanings.

07:22

They have definitions. Yeah, I'm not an immoral relativist. I'm just saying that we do live in a country that I think the founders were very inspired to separate religion from the state.

07:35

By putting everyone into one state religion, like Europe, they saw that that caused a lot of problems.

07:40

I'm glad you understand that distinction, that it was a state religion that we separated, not necessarily, because we have -

07:46

From religion altogether, no. That actually, there are -

07:51

Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists - There are constitutional protections for atheists like me, and Roe v.

07:57

Wade is the law of the land, so - That's our primary right in the

08:03

Constitution, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the 14th Amendment. Life - If my mom had pursued abortion,

08:09

I would be here to regret it. I don't think I was some soul, like, hanging out in the premortal realm.

08:16

No, we don't either. We're not Mormons. We don't believe that you had a spirit body that you inherited. And this is the thing that,

08:23

I'm obviously a little more sympathetic to the Mormon history, because I was raised with it. Me too. It's what people I love.

08:28

30 years, yeah. All right, there you go. So what is your standard if you're not a moral relativist?

08:34

Like, how do you look at what we're doing is wrong, that's right, this is good, that's bad?

08:41

I don't think protest is wrong. I think calling women who opt for abortion murderers is ill -advised.

08:46

Okay. It's gonna get you what you want. I didn't say it's good or bad. But we're just using the legal definition. If women wanna get knocked up and keep the baby, like,

08:54

I don't know, raise my taxes. I'll help them that way. I just don't really feel any warmth or strong feelings one way or another towards other people's babies.

09:06

It's not my life. It's not my business. Let me try this. The baby in the womb and the child, the poet or any of these babies out here, the difference between them is their size, their level of development, their environment and their degree of dependence.

09:20

And so it's not fair to just say, okay, you're a smaller human and I get to kill you because you're a smaller human.

09:25

They are human beings. That is what happens in conception. And we're just trying to protect all life, not just some life.

09:31

We don't wanna put a value on a life because of its size or its environment, its level of dependency, its degree of dependency.

09:37

Then you go into gray areas because life's complicated, it's not black and white. Many, many women, you know, my age and older, who are, you know, established in the

09:47

West, they've had trouble conceiving because they just get pregnant in the mid -30s, then they're baby embryophiles.

09:53

Whatever terminology you wanna use, I think it's all kind of sixes. But you know, they get pregnant.

09:59

And then there's a problem. There is a genetic problem. There's something that if this mother carries a birth deterrent, it really, really could put her at risk if she has other children, then they'd be motherless.

10:12

I just think this very black or white thinking ends up really taking the human beings and the families out of it.

10:18

I just don't think it's my business. I think it's between the doctor, the mother, the father, he's in the picture, and they need to make the choice that's right for them.

10:26

I'm not going in, you know, here's a counterexample, something that's kind of socializing the risks.

10:33

Everyone takes the risk, and no one's like, eh, trying to save human life. Our life expectancy is two years shorter because of the air quality.

10:43

That's killing people. That's, you know, you could say that's murder if you're dead earlier. It's not malice aforethought.

10:49

Air quality is not the same of taking a human life with malice aforethought. Yeah, yeah, and I think if I took a gun, killed one of these little kids, versus if I'm having this really, you know, complicated decision of, you know, this unplanned pregnancy, the only way you could enforce this is extremely, you know, like Poland or Hungary or Argentina, like far right.

11:14

Well, I would consider fascist, but at least like government control. In a pluralistic society where we have people like Jews, Hindus, atheists,

11:23

Mormons, we don't see things the same. Just because you have disproportional power as evangelical

11:29

Christians does not mean that it's the norm the way it might've been in like Jesus Smith's time. So universally, why do we all agree it's not okay to rape a woman if we don't see things the same?

11:39

Apparently, given the Me Too movement, not everyone does agree with that. They say different situations, like if both parties are intoxicated, some people consider that rape, some don't.

11:49

So when would it be okay to harm a child? Under what circumstance, on what country?

11:57

Apparently, if you're a copper mine and you are spewing toxins, it's not analysis of our thoughts, so those kids with asthma, fuck them.

12:06

And it's okay for them to do it though? Sure, I guess by your morality. No, not by mine. I think it's inevitable.

12:11

But you're not doing any, you're not out there protesting at the, I think it's just something that clearly is emotionally really intense for you because of your viewpoint.

12:23

But if you stepped away, if you woke up one day and you're like, I don't really think Jesus is like the

12:28

Messiah and the King of Kings, I think it's a nice story, but not literal. Well, if he wasn't, we couldn't even make sense of this conversation.

12:34

We're assuming truth, we're assuming logic. I don't think that's true. We're assuming reason. I feel like I have like a mental deficiency because I don't believe.

12:43

No, I'm not. I'm saying that you are an image bearer of God and that this conversation would make no sense because you're using logic and you're appealing to standards of truth, universality in nature.

12:52

I'm actually not appealing to universal standards. I'm saying it's more useful in my mind if you actually want to reduce the rate of abortions.

13:01

It seems to me, since the majority of people don't share Mormon or evangelical views on sexual restrictions.

13:09

So you wouldn't agree that truth is universal. Would you agree logic is universal? Not everyone's well -versed in it, but I think appealing to logos is more persuasive than this or that God, because look at like ancient

13:24

Roman times. They believed in their gods too. Christians came along. They thought, the ancient

13:30

Romans, that is, believed that the Christians were the heretics, right? Like it's just clearly these things evolve.

13:36

Yeah, they thought that the story of Jesus on the cross and say, if you're

13:43

Catholic, the transubstantiation, early pagans thought that that was really morally disgusting.

13:49

They thought it was cannibalism. They didn't think it was just misinformed. They thought it was disgusting morally. They're like, what is this?

13:54

You aren't part of our society. You aren't part of what makes us good people.

14:00

And I think we can look, I mean, again, it seems kind of silly to me to say - I know it's way more about church history than I do, so I'll let you answer that way.

14:08

Like Nero and Marcus Aurelius, oh, it's all the same because they're both pagans.

14:13

Like, it just doesn't make any sense to me to not say that we can make distinctions.

14:20

Yeah, in kind of a pluralistic society. But yeah, I just, again,

14:26

I don't really care, frankly, if the abortion rate is low or high. I just don't.

14:31

Again, I don't see it as my business. Do you believe ultimate truth exists? No? Is that true?

14:37

No, I think I'm going to die and my consciousness will be gone and people will come up with -

14:42

You said you weren't a moral relativist, but you just said there's no absolutes.

14:49

So you are a relativist? Everything is relative? Bad faith reading.

14:56

I, in time,

15:01

I think if - But evidence demands truth. If I were Paul and had a hallucination, maybe then

15:07

I would - Would you accept false evidence? Probably, people do all the time. Like, I think you are assuming

15:13

I have a much - Intelligent people actually question their own biases and priors.

15:19

They should, yeah. More than - I agree with that. It's proven, right? Yeah, they're presuppositions, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, so it's just -

15:26

But what do you appeal to for these views? What do you appeal to?

15:32

It was huge thinkers. Voltaire. Yeah, these kind of people - Where did they get any truth that they possess?

15:39

From engaging with texts and each other and arguing and seeing what made sense based on - So where did those texts and all those things come from?

15:46

This is like a real difference, and I don't think it's worth throwing me and being like, that's dumb.

15:51

Like, it's just different, and it's not - It doesn't make you dumb, it just makes me a different person in terms of how

15:59

I move through the world. The Enlightenment says that we can use tools like science and observation to gradually increase truth, but we have to be open to it changing.

16:11

Like the early days of coronavirus, you know, people weren't sure how it spread. Now we have more information. I think it's very silly when people are like, oh my

16:18

God, so there's just no concrete evidence that I can go and see, you know, this very literal

16:28

Jesus who died for my sins. Like, I can't see, I can't experience that. Yeah, yeah.

16:34

So I think that that is a much more - So how do you get that from a random universe? I think random -

16:39

How do you get the law of science? Random's like way too, they're using it as a negative order. Is it an ordered universe, or is it chaos, matter in motion?

16:48

I just don't think that like there had to be a creator to kick it all into being. Then you can't do science.

16:53

But if you were a deist, just, you know, like many of the founders were, like you would basically live your life as if God is not involved in your daily life.

17:02

How do you do science in a chaotic universe that has no ultimate creator holding it all together?

17:09

How do you boil water? To me, that question hardly makes sense. Yeah, you boil water by increasing the heat and pressure until water boils.

17:15

But how do you know it's gonna always boil at 110 degrees? If God is dead, water still boils. That's just like - But not in a random universe, it might boil at 90 degrees tomorrow, and 85 the next day.

17:24

How do you know you're not just gonna float up into the air? That gravity is gonna remain, the law of gravity will persist.

17:30

Yeah, it doesn't have to create, like to me, it's just so silly. Like it's just, to me, it's mind games.

17:36

I think you're playing semantics to try to be like, oh - I think assuming logic and denying truth is semantics, you assume logic is universal, but you deny truth.

17:46

If I grant your point that there's no, I don't believe in corn coast souls, right?

17:52

So, you know, if anything, that is a somewhat stronger argument that like there is no bright line, there's social conventions.

18:02

In early America, it was quickening, so probably when the baby was active, as the science -based, evangelicals didn't invent, the scientists did.

18:15

The NICUs, as those improved, the biobilias are. So sure, let's grant the point that there's no like, there's no bright line, right?

18:23

There's no like, oh, a magic soul appeared, from my point of view. If you want to then say, okay,

18:31

I'm gonna like grant that this fetus embryo, that's our real -

18:37

That's Latin for baby. Sure. Has the human

18:43

DNA, then if you want to decrease abortions, women who are educated, women who know proper sex ed in Keynes terms, it doesn't have to be shrouded in mystery, and women who have choices are the ones who are less likely to seek it out.

19:04

But I don't think you'll ever get the rate to zero, unless again, you have a very like fascist state that is taking it all in nuance, and I don't know, if you want to call some 30 -something married couple baby killers, because they opted to make the hard choice to have the mother of their children live versus a non -viable fetus.

19:25

Why would it be a hard choice if it's not a baby? What's so hard about killing a clump of cells? I think, frankly, people put weight on their pregnancy based on what they want.

19:39

It's because they're made in the image of God and they know what they're doing is wrong. I don't think necessarily.

19:45

It would not be a hard choice for me to take off this mole. I could do that tomorrow with no problem. I will be honest if for some reason my birth control failed and I had sex and I got an act up.

19:56

I don't think it'd be a hard choice for me. I don't want a child. I don't want to be a mother. Well, it's clear you've hardened your heart against God's word.

20:01

Sure, yeah. You know, that you were raised in a Mormon home and you experienced falsehood through that, but you obviously were given some shred of morality through that.

20:12

That's like really patronizing. I hope you, it'd be interesting if you could hear yourself and like.

20:17

The shred of morality? Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, I don't mean to be, I don't mean to. He doesn't mean it that way. My grandmother.

20:23

Honestly, sometimes you're actually coming off that way a bit yourself. And you're making, what he means is you're making a lot of good points.

20:30

He means you're making a lot of good points about morality, about, you know, things, but you're being inconsistent. I think you know that there is a

20:38

God because the Bible says so. Yeah, you know that there is a God. Can I stop you? Yeah. Saying that to someone who truly, truly is an atheist is just as offensive as me,

20:49

I don't know, like going and like stripping nude in a church or something. Like just have some basic respect for other people's viewpoints, right?

20:57

I'm not gonna go to church. I'm not gonna pray to Jesus. I care for you too much. I care for you too much.

21:04

Yeah. You don't know me. I don't, I don't believe in this woo woo love. Love to, we're gonna see you guys again.

21:13

So you would never, if you ever saw someone destitute, you would never lift a hand to help them. I would literally be the

21:19

Pharisee walking onto my door and be like, I'm too busy. I acknowledge that. Well, that's clear what your worldview has done for you then.

21:25

Yeah, you're callous and angry and full of, yeah. I am really angry. I like my life.

21:30

I am angry that there are women who are, in my view, exploited. Exploited by men with power, who

21:38

I think have used religion historically to get away with a lot, that I think is quite, it's not true.

21:50

You know, if you take one Christian example and perhaps you think this is - They turn around again, get the license plate.

21:56

I think they try to run them over. The Roman church. Yeah, huge. In terms of priests and other ecclesiastical leaders, raping children.

22:07

So, you know, I'm like - What's wrong with raping children? What? Yeah, what's wrong with rape? In an atheistic worldview, where there is no good, there is no evil, there's no

22:16

God. More about - How someone can have moral foundations without God.

22:23

Good without God - Even Dawkins has said, it doesn't matter. It's just cells and we're, when we're bombarding -

22:30

He says there is no good, there is no evil. There's just blind, pitiless indifference in an atheistic view. Yeah, and I think these so -called new atheists are -

22:39

Against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth about God. You really need to get the last word, don't you?

22:45

That's the very best one. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. So what do you think you're getting out of this?

22:53

I don't know. We've held babies. We have seen women helped to the point where, like he said, we've gotten them into apartments, cars.

23:03

They have never said, I wish I would have gone through with it. I don't care. But again, often it's lower class women -

23:11

Oh, you're saying our discussion with you? I'm gonna be honest, if you are - You're saying our discussion with you.

23:17

What is our hope for that? This is the mormon in me. If you have sex and you don't think about the possible consequences, you're a little -

23:24

Yes, yes. You said lower class citizens. You guys are unwelcome in this neighborhood. You should fuck off.

23:30

You should be saying that to them. They kill children. They do not kill children. Like I said to these idiots,

23:37

I never had an abortion because - You know how this started?

23:43

With eugenics. Margaret Sanger, they wanted to exterminate the African American people. They put this place in a low income housing -

23:50

It's a very humorous bunch of white and Latin people. They've even admitted to it.

23:55

They've admitted to their racist beginnings. That's the foundation of this. That's really nice to say to a kid.

24:02

You're very classy, ma 'am. I'm trying to, I'm not. You have every right to stand here and be our freedom of speech.

24:11

It's not just your side. I do agree with that. That is 100 % right.

24:16

I can tell you, your shoes are adored. Thank you. I agree. And so does my Mormon sister, who only has a shred of morality.

24:24

Even though she's literally the sweetest person I know, actually shares much.

24:30

It's very interesting to me that people who, again, they seem to not grasp that I am living in a different mindset that if they woke up, they would make the same choices

24:40

I do, I think. But I appreciate what you said, though, about freedom of speech. I was a Mormon for 30 years.

24:47

I was an adulterer at heart. I was a liar. I was a thief. Were you married and cheating on your wife?

24:53

Yeah, in my heart, absolutely. That's a really weird. If I got married,

24:59

I would, okay, here. If I got married, again, what makes adultery wrong is that it can hurt other people.

25:06

You feel betrayed. People that get so hung up on, oh my goodness, I was aroused. Like, that's human nature.

25:14

We're such humans. Abortion hurts babies, though. Based off of that argument, children feel pain in the womb.

25:19

They recoil from syringes in the womb. They feel the pain. So you just said, you just said adultery hurts.

25:27

To someone, and all she reasonably can, what makes it a hard choice?

25:49

I mean, a hard choice for her to seek an abortion is that she was in the middle of what I would call a full -blown nervous breakdown.

25:56

She was not gonna be, she has substance abuse issues. She has addiction issues. We have a thing called adoption for women.

26:02

I sympathize with, I sympathize with her. I cannot say enough, if you had just taken away me from my mom, who is dead.

26:12

Like, I just, it literally is too upsetting to me to think about. I loved my mom.

26:17

Stop snatching children from their actual mom's arms.

26:23

So kill them, kill them, or let the parent keep them? Yes, yes. Kill them or keep them?

26:28

Okay, okay. Ma 'am, ma 'am, we love you. We care for you. We know, turn.

26:38

Me and brother Brian just literally spoke with a woman who, at the very end of it, it just seemed like we,

26:46

Brian hit a nerve, and let's just restate exactly what happened. She did not weep. She did not shred a tear for any child that's been murdered 60 million plus since Roe v.

26:57

Wade. But what did she shed a tear for? She shed a tear that a child may be adopted and their life saved compared to a child being brutally murdered in the womb.

27:09

That's what she cries for, is the adoption, the possible separation from a birth mother instead of the murder that's taking place here.

27:18

It's just so, it's completely absurd. Yeah, it's one of the first times I think I've ever heard somebody get that triggered when

27:25

I brought up adoption. At the time, she was talking about a woman with substance abuse problems who may or may not be able to take care of that child.

27:33

And I said, well, we would offer them the option of adoption. And that was enough to just send her right over the edge.

27:40

I am, I'm blown away out of all her calmness, which she was slowly losing, of course.

27:49

There is where she lost it, considering that she would have rather been aborted by her mother, she said, instead of adopted out and alive today.

28:00

That's a first. That's the atheistic worldview in full motion, my friends. I mean, you know, it's just, what

28:08

I'm reminded is, like Paul says, it's not crafty arguments, it's not persuasive speech, it's not wisdom of the world.

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That woman truly needs the gospel of Jesus Christ and for it to penetrate her dead heart.

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I mean, there's just nothing else, so. And before we're quick to judge her, we always got to remind ourselves, but for the grace of God, that's us.

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And so we just got to bring the truth, stand on the word of God and preach the gospel at all times, including to ourselves, that we're not better than them.

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We need the grace of Christ as much as they do, but until God awakens that dead person, but God are two of the most beautiful words in scripture, until that happens, then they're gonna go on in their blindness and in their hardness of heart.

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And so pray for her and pray that, you know, we may be planted and watered a little bit, but God will bring the increase in people's lives.

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We just have to keep preaching the truth in love. Amen, that's right, brother. That sort of worldview will only leave you with a brokenness, with an emptiness, something that only

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Christ can fix and fulfill. So pray for that young woman with us, guys.