He Broke The Sidewalk With Faithfulness

Apologia Studios

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So this is actually, to my mind, a historic site.

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It's a place where one of the giants of the faith of our generation has stood and ministered for 16 years.

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It's a really incredible spot. This is the Orlando Women's Center. I've only been here for a little bit as we're getting everything set up to do this for you so you can see this place.

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And just in being here for a short time, I've already seen several mothers and fathers going in and out.

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I've watched two women who came in here to kill their children stumble out and sort of be carried out by the fathers of the children.

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And so it really can be a devastating emotional experience to be out here, to be so close.

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We've been in this for maybe about a decade, preaching the gospel at abortion mills, raising up churches to go and save lives.

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Thousands of children have been saved through the work of the churches through End Abortion Now, who have come out to preach the gospel, to offer help and hope and love to mothers and fathers who are going in to kill their children.

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But where we're at, we can't get this close to the abortion mills. So this, for me, is a really powerful experience.

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Not just because of how close you can be to the mothers and the fathers who are going in there to kill their children, how close you can be to the paid assassin who's out back smoking, and to the staff that are out there smoking in between killing children.

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But it's an amazing place to be because of what's taken place at this location.

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John Barros is my hero of the faith, one of my heroes of the faith.

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He's been out here faithfully. He's been a silent hero for so long. Every single day coming out here to preach the gospel to these mothers and fathers to plead for the lives of their children.

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He's been doing it for 16 years. I call him a silent hero because he was doing this and he was faithful out here every single day before people really cared about who he was or had cameras on him or could do live feeds out here.

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He was just saving children by the thousands before it was cool. And so many miracles have happened here at the

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Orlando Women's Center. Too many miracles to actually talk about right now on this particular clip.

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But miracles happening, I mean, even every day. I've talked to the two men that are out here today and they've already seen,

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I think, two or three saves today. Just by being here, being faithful, standing on the truth and preaching

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Christ. But I wanted to show you this. This for me is a moment that I will never forget.

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John's one of my heroes. He's inspired me to do this work. End abortion now exists in many ways because of his testimony and his work.

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But I've wanted to come here for so long to experience just being here at the place where God has moved to save thousands of children from death over so many years.

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And I've wanted to come here because of this.

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This is actually a very, very powerful thing. John, many of you guys know, stands on crutches.

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So not only does he come to the abortion mill to preach the gospel and save lives all day long. And let me just tell you right now, it's hot out here.

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It's hot. It's not comfortable. But he stands on crutches and he's been here for so long, so faithfully been here for so long, for 16 years, that he's literally worn the sidewalk down.

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He's worn the sidewalk down right in front of the doors where the mothers and fathers are going in to kill their children.

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This has been his station right here. This is his spot. And this is where the gospel has come from, this worn down sidewalk right into those doors, into those mothers and fathers in there who are going to kill their children.

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The gospel has come out from this spot so many thousands of times.

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And God has saved so many thousands of children. To my mind, this ought to be a monument.

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It is a monument. It is a monument. It's a monument to one man's faithfulness, to a silent hero, a man who's given his life for these children.

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And I was saying this earlier, so many thousands of children are going to go through their whole lives and never even hear the story of the hero who saved their lives.

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Many of the mothers and fathers who turned away from killing the children aren't going to tell their child, you know,

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I was going to kill you and then this man stopped me. They'll never tell them. Who knows?

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God knows. John knows. Those mothers and fathers know. But their children, they won't know that their life is a reality because of one man's faithfulness in this hot sun outside of this one place of death for so many years.

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And there's a monument to his heroic acts. There's a monument to his faithfulness.

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And it truly is incredible because I don't know if it comes through on the camera like it does when you're here.

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But if you feel the sidewalk all around here, it's consistent, it's rough.

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But as soon as you move over here, John has stood here and you can see where he's worn the sidewalk down.

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And even where when he was standing on his crutches, he's worn the sidewalk down to where this is white.

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But it's not just white, he's literally worn it down to where there's holes in the concrete.

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You can feel this man's faithfulness. The monument to it. All of this dark and consistent and then the concrete just worn down from the weight of his body pushing into those crutches leaving a mark of gospel faithfulness going through those doors.

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And it's powerful because wouldn't it be amazing if one day, like this was an actual historic site.

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I think it ought to be. I know it is in God's mind. But to me this is one of the most precious moments of my life to be able to see this.

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Because this man and his silent faithfulness, the silent hero was out here preaching the gospel to these women saving lives long before most of us got involved in this.

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There are many heroes besides John, don't forget that. But many of us today who are out preaching the gospel and saving lives are doing it in a particular context that's just so different.

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John and others like him were out here as silent heroes before most of us had woken up.

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And here's the monument to his faithfulness. I'm so glad I got to touch it.

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And you can not just hear this story. You can not just hear this story and say, oh that was amazing.

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Praise God for this man. And move on. Don't do that.

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Don't do that. We're a part of this now as the church with the gospel.

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To save lives and preach the gospel. This is about the truth. This isn't merely a political situation.

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I'm not trying to draw on your heart strings. There's real children being slaughtered inside this location and others like it that are near you.

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You can be a part of what God is doing to save children and to bring the gospel into conflict with the issue of abortion.