Ray Comfort On Ending Abortion Now

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Are you an American citizen? Yes, yeah, I became one about 20 years ago.

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Charles Spurgeon told me to become an American citizen. Did he really? I'm not kidding, I was thinking about it.

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I opened up one of his sermons and it began with, if you're living in another country and you're not a citizen, how dare you talk about their sins?

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And I thought, whoa. And so I went and became a citizen, like totally do. Really? Yeah. That's awesome.

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It was wonderful. That's an amazing story. So, people, you have a very good reputation,

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Ray, in terms of pointing people back to the law of God and talking about sin and bringing the gospel, giving the hope of the gospel in the midst of actually telling the truth about sin.

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And so you're well known for your evangelism at Huntington Beach. People know you for the line of questions you bring people through to expose our need for Jesus, our sin.

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And so let me ask you this, because it leads us into the discussion about abortion. Why do you emphasize sin so much?

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For the reason a doctor emphasizes a disease if he wants someone to take a cure. And he got someone, comes into his office, he sees they're going to die.

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He's not going to give them a cure until they're convinced of the disease. And the more he can show them the serious nature of the sin, the more they're going to take the cure seriously.

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If they're flippant about the disease, I'll be fine. He says, no, no, no, no, you're going to die. And these are the symptoms.

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You've got 10 clear symptoms. Then they're going to grab that cure and appreciate it and appropriate it. So it's most necessary to do what

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Jesus did with the Sermon on the Mount, open up the law to do what Paul did in Romans 2. You who say you shall not steal, do you steal?

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You say you shall not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? He's addressing the conscience. He's using the law of God to bring the knowledge of sin and show sin to be exceedingly sinful.

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Did you say the law of God? Yeah, I've been learning to say it. Actually, it depends what part of the country you're in.

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La? La. I love your accent. Thank you. It's actually fake.

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Is it fake? I'm from Texas. It's so that people will listen. Born and raised, Austin, Texas. So it's a good strategy.

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It's a way to build up ministry in the United States. If you have an English accent or New Zealand, Australian, you automatically have intellectual points.

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Well, the prophet's without honor in his own country. So you've got to come from somewhere else. In New Zealand, I'm nobody in New Zealand. It's just a silly accent.

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You sound just like everybody else. That's right. So in light of that, talking to people about sin and repentance and faith and Jesus, giving the hope of the gospel.

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So I think what I appreciate about you, Ray, is that you're not abusive. So a lot of people will say, well, you're on the street preaching the gospel.

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You're talking about the law of God, sin, and all those things. And they associate that with the street preachers they may have seen in the past that are abusive, that are mean -spirited, that are unkind, that almost act like.

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So there's a story of a congregation that loses their pastor because they fire him.

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And so they contact the denomination. And they say, hey, send us a fire -breathing, hellfire and brimstone minister.

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And so he finds one in the denomination. They send him to him. And that congregation fires him two weeks later and say, hey, send us another one.

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He sends another one. Same thing happens to him. Send us another one. They send another one. He ends up being there for 25 years.

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25 years later, the guy in the denomination that sent the guy is perplexed by it. He's like, why? Why'd they keep him?

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They're all hellfire and brimstone. So he calls the guy up. He says, hey, why? I sent you a guy that preaches hellfire and brimstone, then another guy, and then another.

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You're firing all these people. Why'd you keep the last guy? Did the other ones not preach hellfire? They go, no, they did.

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But this last one acted like he didn't want us to go there. That's crazy. And that's what I appreciate about you, is that while you're preaching about the law of God and repentance and faith, you obviously don't want people to be separated from God.

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And that leads me into the 180 movie. The 180 movie, I thought, was one of the best films ever to expose the true nature of abortion and just the complexity that's there.

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So in the 180 movie, it's had such a dramatic impact. And so many millions of people have seen that.

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What was your thinking in going to do that film? Because you're known for law of God, repentance.

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You have a specific way that you take people through the line to get them to see, I need Jesus. What was your thinking in the 180 movie that got you to develop that way of getting into that subject?

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It was actually a mistake. I'd written a book called, Hitler, God, and the Bible. And I went to a local college to interview people about Hitler.

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And they didn't know who he was. They blew me away. That's the footage we got at the beginning of 180. But I went up to a guy and I said, do you know who

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Hitler was? And he says, yeah, he's a really bad guy. And he was angry. And the guy had dreadlocks.

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And I got a great interview. He looked good. And he was good, very eloquent.

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But off the top of my head, I just said to him, so what do you think of abortion? And he said, it's a woman's right to choose.

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I said, you know better than a Nazi. And he just got like that. And we started sword fighting with words for about five minutes.

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And then I said to him, so you think it's a baby in the womb? He says, yes. It's OK to kill a baby when? And he just went, ah.

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And he just stormed off, very, very angry. And I got my camera and I focused on him and I zoomed up for effect.

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And I thought, what an interview. I went to turn my camera off and I heard it go on. I'd turn it off as I went to interview him like an idiot.

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It was just, the lighting was bad. I couldn't see a reflection of the sun. But I just felt so stupid.

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I didn't tell a soul. And about a week later, I thought, you know, that question worked. It's OK to kill a baby in the womb when?

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And that appeals to the conscience. It's the conscience that does its duty. And the conscience cannot stay silent with something as powerful as that.

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It's OK to kill a baby. The conscience says, no, no, you don't. And so many people couldn't answer. So I went out and we got probably another six or seven people and many guys.

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And I remember Eze said to me, the president of our ministry said, you've got to get a woman. It's no good just having guys. So we went out looking for a nice looking woman to interview and we found one.

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It was a woman, Alicia, and she was just marvelous. She was a godsend. And plus, not only that, just weird things began to happen.

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I mean, pro -Nazi people showed up in the crowd. I've never had that happen before. Pro -Nazi. Pro -Nazi.

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Steve with a 14 -inch blue mohawk who loved Hitler. I mean, you don't meet people like that every day.

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And I got him on camera. Plus that other Nazi guy who just loved Hitler. And so we had all this footage.

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And when we put it together, we just went, oh, what do we have here? It's a pro -life movie. Someone who

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I love said, take the Gospel out. It's a wonderful pro -life movie. And I remember thinking, more chance of feeding, flossing the back teeth of lions at the feeding time at LA Zoo rather than the

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Gospel out. We're keeping it in. And so we kept it in. We're certainly glad we did. It's had 5 .4

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million views on YouTube, shown in over 200 countries on television, and over a million DVDs out there.

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And people share it. And we're just so humbled and thankful that we're able to do it. Because I've felt frustrated for years with the issue of abortion, all the political stuff.

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And nothing seemed to happen. It just drives you crazy. Yeah, so I want to ask you about that.

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How should we as Christians be talking about abortion? Because you do it in a very particular way that is often different than many in the pro -life movement do.

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And that's a frustrating thing. It's disheartening at times to see people minimize the necessary damage that abortion has to be caused for me to turn away from this awful sin, right?

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And you do it in a way that exposes the true nature of it. You talk about the Holocaust. You bring association. That's a real association.

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The parallel is clear and necessary. And so you talk about it in a way that Scripture would talk about it.

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You talk about it as image of God. You talk about it as sin. You talk about it as murder. You call people to repentance. Those sorts of things.

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How should we in the Church be talking about abortion to have the impact necessary to see this awful thing end?

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Well, the Gospel is the only answer to the abortion issue. We've got to go to the root.

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You know, lay the axe at the root. Abortion epitomizes the wicked nature of mankind.

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To kill your own offspring? I mean, just think if we went around killing puppies, the world would go crazy.

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Or killing kittens, they'd go crazy. Even if the puppy's still in the womb, and we're going to kill this one.

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We don't want it around the house. They'd go crazy, and yet they kill their own offspring because of selfish reasons.

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So you've got to go to the root cause of that selfish reason. When people die without Christ, they're not separated from God.

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They go to hell. You know, it's not a Christless eternity. It's hell. And a day doesn't go by when

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I'm not horrified. My breath is taken away with the reality of hell. And so that's when I meet someone who's pro -abortion,

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I don't want to talk about abortion. I want to talk about their sin. Because I know the second they repent and trust

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Christ, God's will becomes their will. When I became a Christian, immediately I was pro -life.

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No one talked me into it. I was anti -adultery, anti -fornication, anti -pornography, anti -everything.

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It was an abomination to God because he gave me a new heart, a new desires, and caused me to walk in the statutes.

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That's the answer. That's how to close up abortion clinics, close up the heart to sin through the gospel.

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So Ray, I wanted to ask you a pretty important question that relates to everything you're saying.

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And it has to do with the pro -life movement, how the fight has been going for a long period of time.

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We hear people that are leaders in what is called the pro -life movement will say things like, we need to take a backdoor approach.

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We can't make this fight explicitly about Jesus. It needs to not be about God's word,

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God's law. It needs to not be about Jesus. We just have to convince people that it's a human being in the womb.

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That's really our role here where we will see victory and we'll see the heart of the nation changed.

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They just need to know it's a human being in the womb. And so that's how it's often fought. As a matter of fact, I spoke to one of the leaders of the biggest pro -life organization in the nation.

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He was the vice president. And he said exactly that, backdoor approach. Don't talk about scripture.

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Don't make it about the gospel. Well, what do we say to that, Ray? There was an area of road where cars continued to go off a cliff and people would get killed.

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So the council got together and they built an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff or put a hospital at the bottom of the cliff and a morgue.

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That's not dealing with the problem. You've got to straighten the road. And we've got to straighten the road with it. It depends what the issue is with them.

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What's their agenda? Do they want to see people saved from hell or do they just want to stop abortion? Well, you stop a woman from having an abortion, she's still going to hell.

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There's still a life at stake in the life of her family. So I want to go to the root of the cause.

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And the root of the cause is the human heart. See, you've got spinoff, you've got homosexuality, you've got adultery, you've got fornication, you've got pornography, you've got abortion.

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All these issues are destroying society. And do we want to fix society or want to see people saved from damnation, born into the kingdom of God?

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Well, I'm for the second. What do you say to the person, Ray, that says, you know, you did the 180 movie.

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I think it's great as a Christian. I agree with what you said. But, Ray, I don't think it's necessary for us to get involved in these issues.

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Let the world be the world. Let the church be the church. Why are you trying to speak into those issues? I mean, just focus on the needs of the church.

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Don't address these difficult issues. Because, you know, Ray, when you say to a woman, this is sin, abortion is sin, you've immediately separated yourself from being able to be a friend to her, to have a relationship with her.

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You just need to love her, Ray. You know, you're doing the wrong thing by talking about it and relating it to the Holocaust. You're not making any friends, and you're certainly not loving women who are struggling with abortion.

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What do you say to that? It's God's smile that I'm after and not man's.

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And God knows my motivation by talking to a woman about abortion is love. That's the motivation.

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Love of Christ constrains me. If I didn't have the love of God in me, I'd be up in Australia. I'm from New Zealand, but up in Australia.

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There's a bit of surf there. I'd be an old surf dude, long hair, looking like seaweed, and just surfing, self -indulgence.

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But because I love, I want to warn people about hell and how abortion is wrong. It's taking the life of your child.

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And we're called to be salt and light. And it's wrong to just be light, and it's wrong just to be salt.

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Salt stops the rot, and we've got to speak out on these issues that are rotting society. But we've got to go hand in hand with the light of the gospel, always.

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Yes. And you do know, Ray, that actually there are Australians who will see this, and they will take that little clip where you said that Australia has better surf, and they will make vines out of it and memes, and they will say, see?

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We're better. Has bigger shocks, too. That's true. Yeah, that's right. What do we do,

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Ray, from your perspective, what do we do in the church, the local bodies across the United States about the issue of abortion?

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Do we lay our lives down on this issue, Ray? Or do we sit back, passive, and be pro -life between our ears?

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I know it seems like a dramatic spectrum I'm giving you there, but what do you say is necessary for the churches to do across the country regarding abortion?

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What do we do? What are some things? Well, the problem with the contemporary church is it's self -indulgent. It's the Laodicean church that says that it's rich, but it's poor.

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It says that it's in need of nothing, but it's in need of a revival. They've lost sight of the objective.

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Read the book of Acts. All the church ever did was evangelism, something Charles Spurgeon called the irksome task of evangelism, which it is.

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You've got to motivate your local church to be active in evangelism, and that includes people that are wanting to have abortions.

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And there is a key to getting the local church zealous about the lost. I just don't know what it is.

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I've been looking for it for 40 years. Do you think repentance is necessary in the church in the

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United States? Is repentance necessary? You mean for the church? For the church in the United States. Not if someone is soundly saved.

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If someone is soundly saved, they are right with God. But our churches are filled with false converts, people who not only need repentance, but they need the knowledge of sin.

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I talk to the average Christian, professing Christian, and say things like, think you're a good person?

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Oh, yes. There's no knowledge of sin. You say, is your heart desperately wicked? No. Are you good?

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Yes, I'm good. So Jesus was lying, was he? And that's when they back off. So what do you mean, Jesus was lying? You say, there's none good but God.

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Are you good, and Jesus good, and God good, and nobody else? Or is your heart deceitfully wicked?

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So let's go through the commandments and see. So we've got a lot of people in that category. Tears among the wheat, foolish virgins among the wise, bad fish among the good, goats among the sheep.

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They're going to be sorted out on judgment day unless God helps us to sort them out and get the fear of God back into them so that they'll depart from sin.

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Scripture says, through the fear of the Lord, men depart from evil. And when they don't fear God, they won't depart from evil.

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They'll be workers of iniquity. And our problem is we've got a lot of people in pulpits who aren't sons of thunder.

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They are motivational speakers. They should have been plumbers, electricians, but not professing men of God, proclaiming sin, righteousness, and judgment.

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They don't go near that. And the reason they don't go near that is they think talk of hell discredits

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God. It slurs his character to say that's because they've forsaken the law of God, which shows hell is justified.

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And that's why Felix trembled, because Paul took the time to reason with him of sin, temperance, and judgment to come, sin, which is transgression of the law, judgment, which is by the law.

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And his God was his belly, and he trembled. And that's what needs to happen to the church. When it trembles before God and the fear of God comes back to the church, then it will begin getting involved in social issues and in proclamation of the gospel.

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I thought you said you didn't know the answer. Oh, well. That's a good thing. Can I talk about that one point you made there?

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You talk about the pulpit. Do you think that that's a major, major issue in the church and in the

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United States, the pulpit itself? The pulpit itself. I remember when I first came over here in 1989, the pastor that brought me over here to bring

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Hell's Best Kept Secret to the church, as he said, he said, Lord, get the pastors out of the way, because they were the gatekeepers.

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And then Kurt Cameron showed up, and TBN embraced what I teach, which was just crazy.

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And it's like a jalapeno wrapped in candy. They let me come in and proclaim sin, righteousness, and judgment, because Kurt Cameron, with his great smile, was there beside me.

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And so we got past the pastors to multitudes within the church. So God answered his prayer, I believe.

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He did. God's really used you guys. Yes. Is abortion murder? Absolutely, yes, without the hint of a doubt.

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And it should be called murder, because when you talk of taking up a human life, that's when the conscience will do its duty.

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There shouldn't be any sympathy given to someone who is seeking to kill their own child. They don't have a problem.

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They're not distressed and going, no, no, you're going to kill your child. Are you crazy? You know, it's extremely wicked.

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This would be important. I'm glad I'm getting a chance to sit with you right now to talk to you about this. People will see stuff that you've done online, and I'd say people see it and go, praise

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God. Like, look, that's the truth, and that's the message of the gospel. But then there's a segment of people who see what you do, or see,

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I mean, I see it on stuff that I've put up as well. And they see, on the one hand, they might see you talking to somebody, having a very long, extended, quiet, peaceable, loving, kind conversation.

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And then in another context, someone comes guns blazing at you, and they see you breathing fire back, right?

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With grace and love, but you're still telling the truth, breathing fire. And they say to you, Ray, you got it all wrong.

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You're mean -spirited. It's not, it's just, that hostility bugs me as a

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Christian. I don't think you're being very much like Jesus, because it just seems so hostile. I mean, the gospel should just be about us loving each other, and we just have barbecues, invite our neighbors over, and have, like, extended conversations over 10 cups of coffee, right?

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And why do you engage yourself in the hostility? Because that doesn't seem very much like Jesus.

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That's our biggest problem in open -air preaching, when a professed Christian comes in the crowd and says, you're not being loving.

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There you go. OK, so I say to them, OK, what's your name? And I get their name. I say, where will these people go if they die in their sins without the

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Savior? And they say, they'll go to hell. Excuse me? Where will they go? They say, oh, they'll go to hell. OK, come up here and let me sit at your feet, and let me hear how you tell them they're going to hell and see how nicely you can say it.

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And they go, oh, and they back out and leave. And I say, you haven't the courage or you don't have the love to even warn these people, because you're more worried about yourself than you are them.

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And that's the issue. They're more worried about themselves and the rejection. I believe in relationship evangelism, you know, building a relationship with someone.

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And when I meet a stranger, I'll build a relationship with him for one, maybe two minutes before I share the gospel with him, because he could die that night and be damned.

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And so I'm deeply concerned. And it's an easy thing to do if love's your motivation. We've got workers at our ministry putting up a new studio.

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And there was a guy sitting there the other day. And I sat down with him, because you don't condescendingly stand over someone and share the gospel.

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And as I was sitting down with him, I began to regret it greatly. Because I said, do you think there's an afterlife?

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He said, well, my religion hasn't convinced me. So I said, are you Catholic? He said, no,

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I'm a Muslim. And he had a knife that was very sharp. And he was peeling an orange. And as he chatted to me, he was saying, you know,

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I believe in, and, and, and, and. I was thinking, what? I sit down with this guy. And how can I get out quickly?

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But I stayed with him with a knife flashing in my face. And he was so open to the gospel. And I just gave him a

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Bible before. But I didn't build a two -year relationship with him. I just sat down and said,

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Hamid, do you think there's an afterlife? And he said, but he did.

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And so that brings the issue up. No mention of sin, righteousness, judgment, Jesus, the blood of Christ, the cross, any of these things that make them and us feel uncomfortable.

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And I said, what do you think happens when someone dies? Let them speak, like Jesus did. Jesus asked question after question after question of people, same with Paul.

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Do you steal? Do you commit adultery? Just ask the questions. It's called the Socratic method.

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Socrates asked his students questions. And that bought out. And that's what we should do.

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Jesus did that. Yeah. Yeah. Draw it out of him. And I love you, Ray. Thank you. I love how you do it.

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You take people through those specific questions. And people know about Way of the Master. And that's,

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I mean, I've taught at churches where I see the signs all over the churches. Thursday, we're doing Way of the Master training.

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I've seen that across the country, really. And so it's a blessing to see that, the questions. And people, you're famous for that, the microphone.

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And you know, have you ever loyed? See, I got it. Have you ever lost, like, and it's just fantastic.

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Todd Friel just says, that's Ray Comfort, because that's all you see, my thumb with a microphone. Well, but it's, well, let's ask the question somebody might be saying as they're just getting introduced to you and hearing about, you know, asking these tough questions like this.

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Have people come to Christ through talking about the law and letting their sin be exposed and asking those questions?

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Is it effective? I don't know, because I haven't seen the book of life.

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That's right. You know, God only knows. We're planting seed. He causes people to grow. I don't lead people in sinners' prayers.

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I pray with people and say, you're going to get right with God. They say, yeah, can I pray with you? I don't lead them.

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I let them just pour their heart out to God, and then I pray with them. And God only knows if they're soundly saved. I'm not going to judge a tree until I see its fruit.

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That's right. And so they could go off and say, well, the camera's going. I just did that for that guy with a weird accent. So I best keep my mouth shut.

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And let God do the counting. That's right. But my consolation isn't in the results.

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My consolation is we're doing it biblically. We're doing what Jesus did, and that's all that matters. And that's fantastic. But those questions that you ask are great ways to get at the truth of what's really going on in someone's heart, their identity, right?

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You ask those questions, the line of questions, and it shows who they really are, exposes maybe their own self -deception, right?

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Well, I have some questions I'd like to ask you. OK. OK, so we're going to get to the bottom of a few things with great comfort.

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So what we're going to do, I need some sort of a device. Let me see.

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OK. In 2012, you tweeted,

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I would be a vegetarian if it wasn't for the smell of roast chicken and Luke 1523.

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What's Luke 1523? It's the one that comes after 22. I can't remember. But that's true.

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The smell of chicken just makes me salivate. So I'm looking forward to eternal salivation. OK, so I'm going to ask you a few questions.

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Ray, do you like vegetables? Yeah, I love vegetables. Do you eat vegetables? I eat vegetables, even though they do cry out when they're cut and cooked, apparently, according to scientists.

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Have you ever had a meal where meat wasn't involved? Sometimes, yes, yes. Like a salad? Yeah, yeah,

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I have. PB &J sandwich? Yes, that's the sort of thing. Even at school as a kid? Yes. Have you ever heard the phrase, you are what you eat?

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Yes. So, Ray, by your own admission, you're a vegetable.

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And if you're a vegetable, then you must like vegetables. Therefore, in your heart of hearts, you're a vegetarian at heart.

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Is that loaded? I love you, Ray. Thank you.

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You're a blessing, a gift to this church. Did you get a picture of that? I did. Did you get a close -up? Keep it out.

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Keep it to a close -up. It's usually only atheists that do this.

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You know, what's funny is that when I brought the banana to eat, I had nothing to do with you, and I set it down.

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And she was like, oh, you brought a banana for Ray? I was like, oh, I didn't even realize that. I actually brought this for me to eat.

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I'll show you the trailer of the Banana Man film. Do you have it? Yes. Yeah? Yeah, we're working on it. Let's do that.

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And the new book just came out, too. Which book? Banana Man. Oh, we did talk about that in the last episode, right?

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Let's do that, since we're here. Talk about that. Yeah, sure. I want to hear about the release of that and how people can get a hold of it.

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Yeah. Banana Man has incredible potential to reach the lost.

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You know, I didn't realize it, but it's only about probably four years ago when Scotty, the guy

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I preach the gospel to, the guy I preach the gospel with, said to me, you know, don't be depressed about this whole thing. Even though it's humiliating, it's opened up huge doors for the gospel.

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And I thought, you're right. And so I put on the mantle of Banana Man with great enthusiasm from that time.

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It was as though I had a superhero suit. It was a suit of humiliation that I put on that supernaturally opened up doors so I could talk with Lawrence Krauss.

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Yes, I saw that, yeah. And Penn Jillette and David Silverman.

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My new book, Banana Man, has a commendation across the top by David Silverman, the

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President of American Atheists. Right. And so to get that has just been wonderful. And to share the gospel with so many, literally millions because of it is just such an honor.