Why The Church?

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Good morning. Jesus is King. Amen. I'm going to say, don't tell me there's no reason to be hopeful.

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Last night I was getting ready to go to bed and my wife shows me a picture and Times Square, Jesus is

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King, plastered all over Times Square. Amen, right? There's been a lot, a lot happening here just in the last couple weeks to be excited about.

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I really, truly believe God is moving. He's exposing darkness. Darkness is being brought to light.

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We got Kanye praising Jesus. Goodness gracious. We got guns being pulled on us at the abortion mill by abortionists, by all people.

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It's, it's been crazy. Babies are murdered here too. Who saw that? You all see that? It's going to be, it's going to be awesome.

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It is awesome, but it's going to, it's going to have an impact. I truly believe that. So we need to be praying for that. Um, so anyways, um,

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I'm, I'm, who's, who's here for just God here? Is there, is there any here for the whole conference or did everybody just get here for this?

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Just a few. Okay. Rusty. Um, all right. Just curious. Um, I want to know who

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I was, who I was speaking to. Um, but anyways, this conference has been amazing. If you guys have obviously been here and some of the messages have been, whew, fire.

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Uh, if you guys saw Toby's message yesterday, I think that's the first time I've ever physically been uncomfortable in the pew.

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Uh, I was squirming, squirming like my children. So, um, anyways, I'm super honored to be here.

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Um, I'm honored to be starting this, this day off. Uh, like Jeff said, I've had the privilege of giving this basic message and Northern Ireland, Southern Ireland, Australia, New Zealand.

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It's actually the first time I've had the opportunity to do it here on our own soil. Um, but it's recently updated and actually there's going to be some stuff from, from the film last night

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I'm going to talk about today. That's, that's really important. Um, so that being said, um, the message is called why the church.

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So this morning I want to show you why abortion ultimately can only be ended by the gospel through the proclamation of it from the church, the pro -life movement to attempt, um, to end abortion through, through neutral scientific means has failed miserably to the count of nearly 62 million dead babies.

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And as I was updating this, I gave this message last year and I had to add another nearly 3 million to that number from last year.

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My hope today is to show you why it can only be ended by the church. But before we go any further,

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I actually got a quote here from my good friend, Joe boot, who spoke here a couple of days ago. And, uh, he said this and speaking on the hopelessness of the culture, he said,

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Proverbs eight 36 is plain concerning the ultimate outcome of a rejection of God's wisdom.

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All who sin against me wrong, their own souls and those who hate me love death without the sovereign

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God in their world. And outside of the covenant, men desperately plan their utopias dream of creating cybernetic life and downloading their consciousness into a machine to escape death and wonder how man will avoid the consequences of the evil in his own heart.

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Our culture and its restlessness and hopelessness is developing a love affair with death.

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Hence the current obsession with promoting population control, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, and physician assisted suicide.

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Simply put, our culture hates God and loves death.

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Before we get any further, let's go ahead and pray. Lord, I'm just so grateful again for this opportunity to be here today to start off this, this day today.

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And I just asked that you would speak through me, get me out of the way, Lord. I asked that, uh, your words from, from scripture,

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Lord would just impact everyone here in this room and those watching live and those that will see this later. Lord, I asked that you would use this message that you would use.

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Babies are still murdered here. This conference, Lord, please use it to end abortion once and for all.

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And we ask that you'd be glorified in Christ. Let me pray. Amen. Okay. So why us?

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Why end abortion now? What are we doing differently than the major pro -life groups?

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Uh, well, again, I mentioned 62 million dead babies. That's what, that's what that, that mentality and that methodology has brought us over the last 46 years.

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That's, uh, over that span, that's over 3 ,000 babies per day.

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Now I do praise God that number has slowed. It's more around 2 ,000 per day, but it's still a lot of dead babies.

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And 2 ,000 lives per day compared to 3 ,000 lives per day really isn't a victory, is it?

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The major pro -life groups want you to think it is, but in reality it is not. And I am thankful for the 1 ,000 lives per day that have been spared.

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Don't get me wrong. You better believe it. But that's not what I call winning. Have small battles been won?

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Absolutely. But it's not a victory until legalized abortion of our pre -born neighbors is outlawed once again.

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To give you something to compare those numbers to, conservative number of total deaths from World War II was 50 to 80 million, depending on how you count it.

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The conservative number of murders from Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot, Pol Pot combined is a measly 22 million.

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Brothers and sisters, the murderous abomination created by Margaret Sanger is responsible for three times that and counting in our nation alone.

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If we were to stack those dead babies up one precious little body at a time, it would create a burial mound nearly six miles tall.

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This is our culture's Tower of Babel built to bring them closer to the vile God that they worship.

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And may it serve as a beacon to remind us to continue to fight to end this monstrous atrocity once and for all.

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All that to say, we're not here as haughty know -it -alls, but as repentant sinners in sackcloth and ashes.

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Not look at us in a good way, but look at us as in what we have repented of. We now know what works and what does not.

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We know what has failed resulting in this modern Holocaust. And by God's grace, we also now know what is necessary to win this war.

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My hope and my prayer is that our admonition rings true with you today. And if you are not already, that you will partner with us, that you will join with us in the

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End Abortion Now movement by employing these effective methods that the pro -life movement in our nation has failed to use.

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So my next point then is, how has the church failed? Simple answer, the church in our nation has failed miserably to assert the authority of Christ over all things.

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For various reasons which I'm not going to get into today, the church militant or the true believers presently alive forming the universal bride of Christ ultimately has abandoned the culture.

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Unlike our forefathers, the church has stopped speaking truth to the culture. It has stopped holding our magistrates to biblical standards, and it has left the culture to its own devices.

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The church as a whole in our culture has developed a retreatist mentality. Rather than exhibiting biblical influence, we duck and cover.

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There's an example I like to use of, it's like a deliberate prolonged tying of our shoes, right?

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It's like, oh, I gotta tie my shoe. Oh, still got it.

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For 46 years, that's what we've been doing is tying our shoes while the culture goes to hell in the handbasket. I'm fourth generation of faithful ministers of the gospel, and each generation has affected cultures in other nations, but they're part of generations that have let our own culture go.

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We've given up on the culture. We've retreated to our ecclesiastical bunkers and our

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Christian ghettos, resulting in two major outlooks. One, those waiting for the rapture.

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Two, those waiting on God to fix things. The former is cowardly.

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The latter is lazy, and neither take godly responsibility.

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Scripture clearly teaches that Christ Jesus, our Lord and King, is now ruling, and we have failed to assert his crown rights over all things.

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Christ owns all things, and we failed to rightly acknowledge this, especially over this issue of abortion.

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We probably all know this quote from Francis Schaeffer. He said, every abortion clinic should have a sign in front of it saying, open by the permission of the church.

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Every single abortion mill exists because the church has allowed it to. Every one of our pre -born neighbors innocently murdered in the womb has been needlessly slaughtered because Christ's bride has allowed it.

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Our nation once covenanted with God and is absolutely accountable for the demise of this culture.

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Proverbs 19 .18 says, where there is no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.

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Simply put, there has been no prophetic vision, and the people have therefore cast off restraint.

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So what devices have we left our culture to? Idolatry. And there's two specific ones

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I want to look at. But by failing to call our culture to rightful worship of the creator, we have allowed them to create their own idols to worship, and they've done so uninhibited.

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I truly believe that we become what we worship, and culture is nothing more than worship externalized, and this has led then to the formation of the two main idols

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I want to talk about. The first one is death. The second one is comfort. So as far as death is concerned,

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I mentioned the quote from Jobu at the beginning. Our culture has a love affair with death, and as Dr.

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James White, who also spoke here a couple days ago, he always has said, we live in a culture of death.

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Simply put, the culture worships death. So if we become what we worship, and the culture worships death, what does the culture naturally make?

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And the answer is murderers. Two of the biggest moral topics in our nation is abortion and euthanasia.

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They want to legalize murder. The culture without restrictions is willing to sacrifice anything than for the second idol, which is comfort.

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Ultimately, the culture worships the god of comfort. We've all heard these before, but what are common reasons the culture wants, quote, safe and legal abortions?

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Physical, emotional pain, rape, sickness, disease, money, careers, education, sexual freedom without consequences.

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What do they all boil down to? Comfort. The result is that the culture will readily and willingly murder their children without remorse, all for the sake of comfort.

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They know it's a pre -born human. They know it's a life. They also know it's murder. They say it to us all the time.

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They just want the right to murder their children. You guys saw that in the film. Because their comfort is much more valuable to them than their own offspring.

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Again, we become what we worship. They worship comfort. Therefore, their comfort is a far greater worth than their own offspring.

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The church in our culture has failed to say this for the last 46 plus years. We've failed to call abortion murder.

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And this brings me to my next point, the pro -life rhetoric. So the terminology and the rhetoric being used by the pro -life movement for nearly 50 years has utterly failed.

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I said that in miserably, again to the tune of 60 million plus dead babies and counting.

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Overall, the pro -life movement has failed to call abortion murder. It's failed to call it what it is.

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It's failed to use God's law as its standard. And it's failed to put legislation in place that agrees.

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The pro -life movement has been trying all this time to scientifically convince pro -choicers that our pre -born neighbors are fully human in the womb.

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In 1973, at the time of Roe v. Wade, it was a little bit, quite a bit more difficult to scientifically show that babies are fully human from conception.

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Since then, science has overwhelmingly shown babies are beyond a shadow of a doubt fully human from the moment of conception.

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There is no doubt whatsoever that a fetus in the womb of its mother is a human life. The pro -life movement continues to put forth this argument as the primary reason to make abortion illegal.

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The problem, however, is abortion supporters know this. They don't deny it. They know it's a human life.

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They've repeatedly admitted this. But they simply do not care. They want the right to murder their children because comfort trumps the lives of their offspring.

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We have footage of people saying this to us time and time again. And I'm going to ask you guys a question here.

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Who in here has heard this before? When you're at the abortion mill, you're trying to save the life of a pre -born child.

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Who has heard a mother say, I can never let someone else have my child? It's a lot of hands for those of you who can't see that.

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They'd rather murder their own child than to let someone else have it. Once again, we become what we worship.

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Even though pro -choice is willing to call it murder, the pro -life movement as a whole still refuses to call it murder.

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At the very least, calling the mother, the one who has hired an assassin to murder her child, a murderer.

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They still stick to failing rhetoric. If you guys saw the film last night, there was a quote with Olivia Ganz Turner, who's the president of the

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Virginia Society of Human Life and director of American Victims of Abortion from the National Right to Life.

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And at the 2000 NRLC convention, Marcus asked her, so you think women are not necessarily murderers, but more victims in this process?

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She replied, no one in the pro -life movement, no legitimate, fully recognized and organized pro -life organization, pro -life person that I know, or right -thinking pro -life person has ever intimidated me with the thought of women having abortions as murderers.

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Hi, Olivia. We're here. Also, Carol Tobias, who's the president of the

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National Right to Life said this, the pro -life movement has a lot of women who are active in it, who have had abortions, and they very much argue that the mother who got the abortion is also a victim.

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I want to dig deeper though. Why is this? Why does this movement hold on to this language that has been anything but successful?

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We believe this to be true for one reason. Ultimately, it's the Roman Catholic Church. Yes, the same church that teaches a false works -based salvation, a church we are all very familiar with, the same church that less than two years ago offered plenary indulgences for attending the 2018

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March for Life in Washington, D .C. Let me explain to you what that means.

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Plenary indulgences free a person from all temporal punishment due to sin. In other words, if a

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Catholic properly received the plenary indulgence at the 2018 March for Life and then immediately died, he would go straight to heaven rather than spend time in purgatory.

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The normal conditions for a plenary indulgence must be met in order for this March for Life indulgence to be granted.

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Those wishing to gain the plenary indulgence must be detached from sin or not desiring to sin.

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They must make a sacramental confession, receive Holy Communion, and pray for the Pope's intentions within eight days of attending the

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March for Life events. Show me where that is in Scripture. The same church that is behind the biggest pro -life groups in our nation, 40

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Days for Life, National Right to Life, and then there were none. Why won't

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Roman Catholics call abortion murder? Simple answer, their theology won't allow it. They may individually call it murder, but never corporately as a whole.

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They may without hesitation call the abortion doctor a murderer, but they absolutely will not refer to the mother as anything but a murderer, the abortive mother as God sees them also a murderer.

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Let me explain what I mean. There are two types of sin in Roman Catholic theology. There's mortal and venial.

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So the distinction here I'm going to explain to you, this is from catholiccatechism .com, all sin is an offense against God and a rejection of his perfect love and justice, yet Jesus makes a distinction between two types of sin.

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We call the most serious and grave sins mortal sins. Mortal sins destroy the grace of God in the heart of the sinner.

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By their very grave nature, a mortal sin cuts our relationship off from God and turns man away from his creator.

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Saint Paul's letter to the Hebrews tells us that if we sin willfully after having the knowledge of truth, there is now left no sacrifice for sins.

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The second type of sin, venial sin, that of less grave matter does not cut us off from Christ.

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However, venial sin does weaken grace in the soul and damages our relationship with God.

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A person who frequently indulges in venial sin is very likely to collapse into mortal sin if they persist in their evil ways.

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So mortal sins must meet three conditions. One, it's a sin of grave matter.

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Two, it's a sin committed with full knowledge of the sinner. And three, it's a sin committed with deliberate consent of the sinner.

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In other words, mortal sins cannot be done on accident. The website goes on to say a person who commits a mortal sin is one who knows that their sin is wrong, but still deliberately commits the sin anyway.

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This means that mortal sins are premeditated by the sinner and thus are truly a rejection of God's law and love.

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But doesn't this sound exactly like the mother having an abortion? Isn't she deliberately with full knowledge committing a premeditated murder?

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Surely this is no accident, right? We would say yes, absolutely. The Roman Catholic, however, would say no.

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They would still say that the mother is a victim, that she didn't have full knowledge of what she was doing, or was at the very least coerced.

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This is very confusing, especially considering that the first mortal sin listed is abortion.

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And it's defined as direct abortion, that is abortion willed as an end or as a means.

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It's gravely contrary to the moral law. The church imposes the canonical penalty of excommunication for the crime against human life.

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And right there, brothers and sisters, lies the answer. That's why the Roman Catholics refuse to flat out and straight away call abortion murder.

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And it's also why they only refer to the mother as a victim. If they were to do so, they would have to excommunicate a lot of men and women from the

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Roman Catholic Church. So at this point, it strictly becomes a numbers game. And this is also the driving force behind the failing pro -life rhetoric.

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Bad, unbiblical Roman Catholic theology. Ultimately, this is the underlying presupposition that has caused the pro -life movement to fail so miserably.

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So I'm going to ask you guys another question, and please do not be ashamed to raise your hand.

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How many of you saw Unplanned? It's okay, you can tell me. I'm not going to judge you. I was genuinely grieved to see how many faithful brothers and sisters promoted this film as a good and helpful piece of pro -life propaganda.

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What I'm about to say is probably going to get me in trouble, but I don't care. I need you to hear me on this.

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Abby Johnson, founder of And There Were None, and Then There Were None, excuse me, along with what she promotes is the problem, not the solution.

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The methodology she is advocating is grounded in a faulty worldview, one that cannot save and ultimately will not defeat anything at all.

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You might be sitting here thinking, man, this guy's crazy. Fair enough, but just listen to me for a minute because I'm going to explain something.

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Earlier in 2019 at One Life LA, she was promoting this film,

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Unplanned. So speaking of abortion, she said, this battle will be won because of truth.

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This battle will be won, and it will be won because of Jesus Christ.

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At this point, I was like, all right, amen, I agree with that. But I kept listening.

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She went on to say, faith in science, there you go, it proves our point and shows that we are on the winning side.

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Faith in what? Science. It's not faith in Christ or the gospel, but science.

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Continuing, she said, we are fighting against ignorance, friends, willful ignorance.

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Again, here is the victim argument. I already discussed this, how the majority of the time these mothers know precisely what they are doing.

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This is not willful ignorance, but willful murder of their own children. She then says, in John 8 .32,

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it says, and you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Excellent, I thought. Again, I agree.

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But again, I kept listening. So what is this truth that she's speaking of? Or excuse me, what is the truth that Christ was referring to in that passage and that she was referring to?

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Her answer to what this truth is, she said, on March 29th, the truth about abortion is coming to theaters across the country in my upcoming film,

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Unplanned. What? Not even close, Abby.

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The truth about abortion is not all that will set us free.

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The truth Christ was referring to was the knowledge of who he is. It's the gospel.

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That's the truth that will set us free. To make it even worse, she continues later in the speech to clarify what her goal truly is.

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She went on to say, we want to show people that social justice begins in the womb, and that we will not stop until the most marginalized group of people in our society, the unborn, are protected, not just by law, because our goal cannot simply be just to make abortion illegal.

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Again, I agree, but I disagree with what she says. She says our goal must be to make abortion unthinkable.

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Wrong again, Abby. Here beyond this church, our goal cannot simply be just to make abortion unthinkable.

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It must be to preach the gospel, to lead lost souls to Christ, and to expand Christ's kingdom.

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The abolition of abortion can only occur through the proclamation of the gospel.

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Now, to really drive this point home, I want to look at what something else that Abby said. Part of this was also in the film, but at the 14th annual

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Divine Mercy Conference, this was back in April of this year, this is a Roman Catholic conference.

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She said, we can't talk about abortion in our churches unless we're also willing to talk about redemption and healing after abortion.

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Once again, I agreed with her initial statement. The question, however, is how does she define redemption?

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In a response, this was the quote that was in the film, to a sign that was listing, she said she saw a sign at a rally that was listing societal ailments.

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She said, I have the answer for everything that ails you on your list. It's the Catholic Church. We have the answer.

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We have the truth. Later on, after discussing ice cream, which was a silly illustration, she said, but we have something better than any type of ice cream, and that's the real presence of Jesus Christ.

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But we don't want to talk about it. We want to keep it to ourselves. We don't want to defend the Catholic Church. We don't want to defend our beliefs.

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Why? Because we're afraid we might offend somebody. Let me be really straight with you, because I haven't been until now.

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People who are against the church, they have no qualms about offending you. In fact, they revel in your offense.

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Friends, as Catholics, as those who hold the fullness of truth, it is time for us to be bold in our faith, unlike ever before.

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We have the truth. We should want everyone around us to experience that great joy of the truth.

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And there you have it. This is absolutely not the truth. And fundamentally, not only is it not the gospel, but it's damnable heresy.

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And it is what's influencing the major pro -life groups in our nation. So this brings me to my next point then.

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What is our presupposition? Why the church?

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Why can abortion only end and only be stopped by the church? First, it starts with our presuppositions.

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Only we, the church militant, presuppose God's word as truth, that it is the only infallible rule of faith and practice, that only by it do we have any justification whatsoever for morality.

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Only by standing on scripture can we rightfully call abortion murder. Only we know there is no neutrality, that you're either for or against Christ.

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Atheists have no justification, and neither does the Roman Catholic Church. Their ultimate authority is not the word of God, but the

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Pope. Neither do they have a true gospel. There's a quote from Dr.

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George Grant that was in the film, if you saw it. He said, one of the things about the Catholic Church is that it operates largely by tradition rather than by theology.

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And so you can create a culture that cherishes life, large families, all of that, without really having a strong foundation for that theologically, so that a skeptical generation can come along and wash away centuries of tradition in a moment.

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So I think that Roman Catholics are very good at creating this culture, but they're very, very poor in establishing that culture on a firm foundation, because they do not have the theology for it.

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And as a result, they can have short bursts of public policy victories, but they're not sustainable.

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What makes the victory sustainable inevitably will be the transformation of people's hearts by the power of the gospel.

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That's what changes cultures. What we need is reformation. Ultimately, attempting to operate from a neutral position leaves the pro -life movement with no ultimate authority either.

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And I have another quote here from Carol Tobias. She said, the National Rights Alliance does not consider itself to be any kind of religious or faith -based organization, but we realize we are fighting in a secular world that doesn't care.

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You know, a lot of people don't read the Bible. They don't know that God created human life, that he is the creator of life.

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So we do try to work on a scientific basis, a human rights basis. Certainly, faith comes into a lot of what we do, but that's not necessarily the basis for our arguments.

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The basis for their arguments is science and subjective human rights.

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They provide no objective standard for morality and therefore build their foundation on sinking sand that ebbs and flows with societal convention.

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This brings me to my next reason as to why this fight to end abortion must be led by the church.

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Ultimately, abortion can only be ended by the gospel. The shedding of innocent blood can only be stopped by the shedding of Christ's innocent blood, only after the hearts of men have been changed.

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Our culture knows that in order for redemption to occur, innocent blood must be shed.

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The problem is that they're seeking redemption from pain and the God of comfort, and they've rejected the only sacrifice of innocent blood that can truly redeem them.

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Even righteous laws, like some of the ones we already have in place, are ultimately nothing more than societal band -aids.

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They do not heal the hearts of men, and until men's hearts are regenerated, until their hearts of stone are replaced with hearts of flesh, they will still desire sin, they will still desire death.

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Simply put, they need the gospel. These righteous laws and proclamations are nothing more than temporary solutions that appease cultural demands.

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Please don't misunderstand me. I praise God for them. They need to be protected and fought for, but as part of this fight, the gospel must be proclaimed.

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And without it, these laws and these proclamations are ultimately meaningless. Laws are nothing more than legislated morality.

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So naturally, the question becomes, whose morality are we going to legislate? If we're going to attempt to establish neutral laws separate from God's objective morality, absent from God's good news of redemptive grace, then we are simply bailing water from a sinking ship one bucket at a time.

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Each bucket of water we bail may buy us some time from our inevitable demise, but without the hope of a rescuer, they're nothing more than false hope.

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They're not victories, but lies. It's time to abandon this titanic of a sinking ship.

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It appears to have been well -designed, but in reality it has a fatal flaw. The gospel must be the driving force that propels this righteous arc of redemption.

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And gospel change must happen one person at a time. It starts at the bottom and it works its way up.

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The more Christ's kingdom grows, the more men will love Christ. And the more men love

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Christ, the more men will love their neighbors, including their pre -born neighbors. And this can only occur with the proclamation of the gospel.

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And the proclamation of the gospel can only come from the living, universal church of Christ. The church militant, the living, active, fighting, breathing, the bride of Christ.

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Naturally, a bride will want to please her husband. But my next point is, what does the church's husband want?

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What pleases him? And there's two things I want to look at. One, love God and love others.

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Two, the Great Commission. Matthew 22, 36 through 40.

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Teacher, what is the great commandment of the law? And he said to him, this is Christ speaking, you shall love the

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Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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And these two commandments depend on the law and the prophets. So loving God and loving your neighbor will naturally lead to the second point, which is the

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Great Commission. So the last thing, of course, that Jesus said to the disciples in Matthew before leaving them,

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Matthew 28, 18 through 20, he said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. So obviously Christ desires his bride to go into all the world, preaching the gospel and making disciples.

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However, there are two statements in the Great Commission I believe are commonly overlooked.

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And that will be the focus of my next two points. One, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me to teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

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So by what authority? Again, this is Matthew 28, 18. And Jesus said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Now go. So Jesus has been given all authority. Abraham Kuyper said, there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which

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Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not cry, mine. Through the

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Great Commission, he transferred authority to his bride to go make and teach in his name with his authority.

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And this is what I believe to be the missing element I mentioned earlier. In our culture, the church has failed to assert the authority of Christ over all things.

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Christ has commanded us to assert his authority. And as a whole, we have failed to do so.

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We've become fearful, we've become timid, and we've become lazy. We say with our lips that Christ is

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King, that he is ruler over the universe. But in no way do our actions show that we actually believe this.

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In many ways, we talk the talk, but we don't walk the walk. Colossians 1, 15 through 20 says, he is the image of the invisible

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God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominions, or rulers, or authorities.

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All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things.

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And in him, all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

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For in him, all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. Verse 20, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

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All things were created by Christ and for his glory, both in heaven and on earth.

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This includes thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities. They were created, and they exist, and they are upheld through him and for him.

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I think that the point we so often miss is that Christ is not just concerned with things in heaven.

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He's also concerned with things here on earth. We've become so heavenly minded and rightfully so that we've become not so earthly minded.

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What is it that Christ is accomplishing in this passage? It says he didn't come simply to make peace by the blood of the cross, but also to reconcile to himself all things.

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Where? On earth and in heaven. By asserting the authority of Christ over all things through the gospel, all things on earth can be reconciled to Christ.

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This includes abortion. We must preach the gospel boldly with all authority, the authority given to us by Christ.

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This includes the area of government and politics. Our laws and government exist because Christ allows them to.

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They're included under the thrones, dominions, rulers, and authorities that I just mentioned. Romans 13 teaches us that there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.

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Our governing authorities are literally God's deacons, his servants, his ministers. They operate as God allows them to.

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He has all authority, and as his bride, it is our duty to assert that authority. We've come to believe that the government is absolutely sovereign, that they ultimately are

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God. The government acts as if they are our savior, and we've come to believe and allow this.

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But ultimately, the only sovereignty governments truly have comes from the truly sovereign

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God of the universe. Our nation has allowed our culture to establish some forms of unrighteous tyranny.

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Quickly, I want to look at a biblical example of fighting tyranny with God's authority.

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We all know David and Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. We all know the story, but again,

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I think we overlook what was said. So I'll give a brief synopsis here.

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David first comes to the Israelite camp. He sees Goliath for the first time, and it says that Goliath is breeding threats against the

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Israelite army. David's response in 1

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Samuel 17 26 is, for who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living

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God? Notice David, a tiny little boy, his immediate boldness and courage, while the entire

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Israelite army is hiding in utter fear. They're tying their sandals, right? David is not at all impressed by Goliath.

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So after declining Saul's armor, he collects the five smooth stones for the sling and he approaches Goliath. Goliath's reaction then in 43 to 44, he says, am

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I a dog that you come to me with sticks? Come to me and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field.

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It says that Goliath actually disdained David and cursed him by his gods.

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I love David's reply though. In verse 45, you come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the

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Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel whom you have defied.

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This day, the Lord will deliver you into my hand and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the

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Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a

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God in Israel and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves not with sword and spear, but the battle is the

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Lord's and he will give you into our hand. The point I want us to get here is how often do we have the courage that David had?

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How often do we face the enemy with that much confidence? Goliath I believe is a perfect picture of the culture we're facing.

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The same spiteful God hating attitude we're up against. When the big mean haughty culture is bearing down, when they say, are we dogs that you come to us with a book?

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Our response should not be to duck and cover or to run and hide. We should not retreat. We should not stop and tie our shoes for 46 years.

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Our response should be, who are you uncircumcised culture that you should defy the armies of the living God? When the culture spits, hurls insults and threatens us, our response should not be to find the nearest bunker and to wait it out.

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Our response should be to confront them in the name of the Lord of hosts, to let them know they have defied the

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God of the armies of Israel. For what purpose the text says that all the earth may know that there is a

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God in Israel and to declare that the Lord saves not with sword and spear. So who here will be this generation's

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David? Who will admonish the church to take courage because the battle is the Lord's. Who has enough fortitude to tell the culture, he will give you into our hand.

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This brings me to my next point then, which is the imperial gospel. And I actually got this from my good friend,

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Andrew Sandlin, who also spoke this week. And I realized the term imperial gospel sounds strange.

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It sounded strange when I first heard it, but let me explain what it means. The gospel is imperialistic.

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Simply all that really means is that the gospel is designed in such a way as to eliminate all rivals, as to dethrone all idols and as to defeat every area in which sin resides.

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I want to give you a quick history lesson. The writers of the New Testament were not the first to use euangelion, the evangel, the gospel, literally the good news.

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It was an imperialistic term already being used primarily for the emperor.

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Just like the gospel of the kingdom of Christ, it was literally the good news of the emperor or the king.

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So what would happen is say the emperor would be returning and victory from a battle.

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And so they would actually have good news bearers that would precede the emperor. So Andrew Sandlin said, the emperor issued good news, his gospel.

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He himself embodied the good news. He was deemed in some sense divine. He healed.

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He performed other miracles. He was the world's savior. He is a God protected the state, great signs accompanying his birth and life.

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His words became sacred writings. He granted great power to human beings under his care.

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No wonder his life and actions and words are celebrated as gospel. The emperor himself was good news.

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The early Christians were not persecuted for their faith in Christ. The Roman Empire actually welcomed other religions.

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They bragged about all the different religions they had. The early Christians were persecuted because they would not call

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Caesar Lord. They would not declare Kaiser Kyrgios, but instead we have no king, but Christ.

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There was a religious principle of the Roman Empire regarding Caesar Augustus that said salvation is to be found and none other save Augustus.

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And there was no other name given to men in which they can be saved. Does this sound familiar? It should.

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It sounds a lot like Acts 4 .12, which says in their salvation and no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

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This was a direct affront to the imperial worship of Caesar. Peter understood exactly what he was saying.

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He understood that the gospel is not simply a private matter. It is not just in the privacy of our own hearts, our own homes, but that it actually had political implications.

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He was overturning Caesar's authority. Christ is the true Caesar of the universe.

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He's the only good news, the only way of salvation, the world's rightful ruler. And unlike paper monarchs,

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Christ has real, true authority. He has all authority. And we should be preaching the gospel as if we believe this.

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And if we do, the gospel should directly affect politics and culture.

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It should be confronting unrighteous rulers and unrighteous laws and unrighteous cultural desires and lifestyles.

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And if it's not, then we're not doing it right. Andrew Salem went on to say, it's imperative to understand that battling for religious liberty and protecting the family and championing biblical sexuality are not the results of faithful gospel ministry.

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They aren't tasks in addition to the gospel. They are a part, an indispensable part of the gospel ministry.

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Every time we litigate to protect street preachers, we're preaching the gospel. Every time we influence legislators to vote for marriage, we're preaching the gospel.

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Every time we lead churches to speak biblical truth outside the walls of the church, we're preaching the gospel. Every time we expose human trafficking, we're preaching the gospel.

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Every time we work to limit abortion, both by persuading a woman not to get one and influencing the government to limit and eventually abolish it, we're preaching the gospel.

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And this brings me to my last point. With this authority, what specifically should we be teaching them to observe?

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Remember from the great commission, Jesus said, all that I have commanded you. And for the sake of time and regard to abortion, there's one passage

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I want to look at. Proverbs 24, 10 through 12. This is our key verse for an abortion.

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Now, if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death.

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Hold back those who are summoned to the slaughter. If you say, behold, we did not know this. Does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?

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Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it? And will he not repay man according to his work?

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This is the driving force, again, behind our abortion ministry. It's pretty simple. It's not tricky.

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It's not exegetically difficult to decipher. The bottom line is that we are commanded to rescue those who are being taken away to death and hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

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This clearly and directly describes abortion. As the church, as Christ's bride, it is our responsibility to live this out, to rescue those beautiful children being taken away to death, to hold them back from stumbling to the slaughter.

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If we have the opportunity to obey this command and we are not doing it, chances are we're also not teaching others to observe it.

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If we're not teaching others to observe it, then we're failing the Great Commission. If you say, we did not know this, you're a liar.

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If you're hearing this now, you now know and you are without excuse. Verse 12 says, does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it?

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And will he not repay man according to his work? You will be held accountable. The answer to ending abortion has to come from the church, and it has to start with the gospel.

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And the language and the rhetoric we use cannot be compromised. Another quote from Andrew Sandlin, he said, the curse affects all creation, but the gospel goes far as the curse is found.

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That means everywhere. So my conclusion, my plea to you is to please repent of any apathy regarding abortion you may have.

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Please do not resort to the failing tactics of the pro -life movement. Please allow the gospel and God's law to be your standard.

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Precious little lives literally depend on it. My challenge to you, for those of you who are pastors, it starts with you.

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It starts in the pulpit. You are not just the watchdogs of your congregations, but also the watchdogs of our culture.

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There's a saying, as the church goes, so goes the nation. This could not be a more true statement.

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How you lead your churches directly affects the state of your surrounding community and eventually your culture.

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So my admonition to you is to be bold, to be courageous. Do not buckle under persecution. I promise you,

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Jesus promised us, we will be hated. You will be hated if you stand against this atrocity.

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Quickly here, I want to look at Judges 6. I want to talk about Gideon. God commanded

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Gideon to literally tear down his community idols, ones that his own father had built.

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Of course, Gideon was afraid, but God told him in verse 16, I will be with you. Gideon was faithful.

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He followed God, and God gave him the courage to obey what he had commanded. Gideon pulled down the altar of Baal and cut down the

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Asherah. What was the result? The men of his town immediately went looking for him.

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They found his father and demanded, bring out your son that he may die, for he has broken down the altar of Baal and cut down the

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Asherah beside it. Yet, just as God promised, he protected him. So here's the point.

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As I mentioned earlier, abortion is a cultural idol. We are attempting to tear down that idol.

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You will be hated. The culture may even want to kill you. You may have an abortion doctor point a gun at you.

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But be faithful to God's commands. He will, as in verse 34, clothe you with the

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Spirit of the Lord. This fight will not be easy. It's hard to be hopeful, but it's easy to be hopeless.

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And at this point, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention two of my own heroes that are in this room.

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Rusty and John. Is John still here? These men have been doing this a long time.

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Day after day, standing out there, taking abuse, being hated, being spit on, all that, being cursed at, trying to tear down these idols.

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And God's protected them for their faithfulness. So my practical advice to you is to also leave a media footprint.

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Media is a tremendous blessing that should be viewed with grateful suspicion, but can also be used for unrighteous causes.

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I implore you to find a way to maximize media for this righteous cause.

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Pro -aborts are doing a fantastic job of using it to propagate their worldview. But I want to ask you guys here, how are you using it to propagate yours?

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In closing, who here will be this generation's David? Who will be this generation's

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Gideon? Isaiah 41 .10 says, fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed for I am your

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God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

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Let's pray. Lord, I just, again, I'm so grateful to be standing here right now.

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I'm thankful for the men in this room that have influenced me, that have sacrificed their lives,

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Lord, for the sake of this cause. Lord, I pray that as we leave here today, that we would approach this fight,

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Lord, with the mentality that we are willing to lay down our lives for the sake of ending abortion, for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of building your kingdom.

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And again, I ask that this conference and that this film that we're releasing this week,

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Lord, that you would use it to bring about reformation in our nation, that you would use it to end our modern holocaust.