The Sermon That Can Change A Nation- Part 2

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The Sermon That Can Change A Nation- Part 3

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Good evening brothers and sisters. My name is Zachary Conover and I am the

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Director of Communications for End Abortion Now, which is our campaign in Phoenix, Arizona in the

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United States to save unborn children, to uphold justice for these image bearers of God in the womb.

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My responsibility in this area, in this office, in End Abortion Now is to basically do everything possible at the places where babies are being killed to stop it.

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So we go to these places of death where, as you know, abortion in my nation is happening every single day and we plead with mothers and fathers and with families not to go into these places of death.

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We stand out on the sidewalks and we line the sidewalks with Christians, with brothers and sisters in Christ who have the gospel and declare that message at the places that this is happening and we plead with mothers and fathers not to go into these places and kill their children.

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We say very difficult things to them at these places. We tell them the truth that no one else will tell them because we believe that we're commissioned by Jesus Christ and we have the love of God and love for neighbor that compels us to go to these difficult places and to speak these difficult truths, not for just for the sake of being controversial, not just for the sake of saying hard things, but in the hopes that the gospel of Jesus Christ would be brought into this area in such a way that it saves lives and that it saves souls.

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And praise be to God, just in the short time that I've been involved in this ministry going to these places of death,

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I've actually been blessed and privileged by God in order to hold some of these children in my arms that have been saved as a result of standing out on the sidewalk and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to people that I don't even know.

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I've never met, I don't know anything about their situation, I don't know what circumstance led them to this place, but I do know one thing, they need

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Jesus Christ, they need the gospel of the living God, they need to be turned from their sin and they need to know this

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King and the forgiveness that he brings and the reason that we come to you tonight is out of a most humble place, out of a most broken place, out of a place of repentance for what's going on in our nation and how so many of us for so long over the course of four decades have allowed this continued slaughter to go on.

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Our own sons and daughters are offered up in my nation every day over the last 45 years.

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Our nation has decided with one voice declaring that these innocents, image bearers of God are not to be valued and not to be protected, but praise be to God that he is raising up his people.

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That much I can assure you, he is raising up a faithful generation to proclaim his word in this area, not just at the places where it's taking place and happening, but also in the legislative realm, in the public eye, through the use of media, bringing the fight of the gospel, bringing the good news of the gospel into the public eye and changing hearts and minds as well as saving souls and lives.

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So it's to this end that we come to you tonight because as we understand it and as our brothers and sisters have made us aware from the beginning, abortion, the murder of unborn children is knocking at the door of Ireland and it has been for quite some time.

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And so we come here out of a place of brokenness, out of a place of repentance to offer any assistance, any service to you, the church in Ireland that we can to declare to you with humility that we have failed.

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We have failed in so many ways. We haven't been salt. We haven't been light to a culture that's decaying and spoiling and to a culture that is covered in darkness.

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My place in this fight started just a few years ago and as I stand here this evening knowing that I have no earthly business to be standing here in this pulpit tonight,

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I speak with the Apostle Paul and ask the question, who is sufficient for these things? Who is sufficient to stand here and to speak to you?

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And the Apostle Paul says in that passage that it is the one who is not a peddler of God's word.

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It is someone that does not trade in the truth for a lie that is not a huckster. But the word that is spoken by a minister of God in sincerity and in truth is the word that God honors and I pray that he honors this word here tonight.

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And the reason that we're all here is because of the impending legalization of abortion and the removal of protection for unborn children in the nation of Ireland.

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As I was saying, this evil in our nation is rampant at the rate of about 3 ,300 children a day.

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They're dying in our nation. At least 60 million since the time of Roe versus Wade, which is the infamous

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Supreme Court decision, uttered as an unjust tyrannical opinion from our nation's highest court, declaring that unborn children in the womb were seen as nothing more than potential human life and not worthy of value or protection or dignity and worth.

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And it's interesting. Socialist Karl Marx said that in order to destroy the holy family, in order to destroy the holy family of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the earthly family must first be destroyed.

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And we know that as the families of this earth, the

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Christian families particularly, God has made family as the fundamental building block and the institution by which he advances his purposes throughout the world, his redemptive purposes.

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It is his institution. And so we see that abortion is fundamentally an attack on God's familial nature in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

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But it is also an attack on his great plan of salvation.

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The Bible declares the need for you and I to be born again.

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Jesus says you must be born again in order to even see the kingdom. And so the enemies of the kingdom, the opposition in your nation and mine have learned what is the effective destruction of the church of Jesus Christ and the people of God.

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And they are assaulting our families, one baby at a time. Jesus said that we needed to be born again and have a second birth.

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But those who are enemies of unborn children and the church of Jesus Christ are attacking the first birth so that the second birth is not even a possibility.

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And so we must realize, brothers and sisters, that abortion is a crime promoted by those who have the most deep -seated hatred against the human family.

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Scripture is clear that the family is God's foundational institution for enacting his purposes in the world.

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And the proof that you and I live in a secularized culture with Christian remnants hanging around, even in my nation, this is the case.

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We see that in God's law, according to his standards, crimes in his law were seen as crimes against the family.

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That was fundamentally associated with the law of God. If you violate the law of God, it's for reasons of crimes against the family, whereas in our secular nations now, crimes against the state are seen as the most severely punishable.

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And this is the evidence that you and I both live in nations that have broken our covenants with our

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Lord and are rapidly descending into secularism, rapidly descending into a worldview without God in our knowledge, without God in our frameworks.

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And abortion is one of the results of this collapse in our cultures.

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We must realize that abortion is a tool of a radically secularized state that seeks to eliminate all rivals to its rule, namely the human family, which is the building block of the church and subsequently a nation.

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Therefore, in fighting against it, we must reject all humanistic, man -centered reasoning that seeks to exalt man's wisdom over God's unchanging revelation.

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And we've been encouraged by speaking with our brothers and sisters here so far. They seem apt to fight this great evil of our day in a way that honors

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God, that's faithful to his word, that's faithful to his scripture, that uses the word of God and not the reasoning of man and the elevation of man's reason and his pragmatic strategies in order to do so.

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And so we are encouraged here this evening. But one thing that this does, fighting this battle against the murder of unborn children, if we stand on the word of the living

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God and refuse to allow humanistic principles to inform the way that we view abortion and that we fight against it, it will first allow us to diagnose properly what the problem is, what the issue is, what's lying at the foundation of this great evil in our day.

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It doesn't lie in someone's environment or their socioeconomic status or their upbringing or in any other external factor outside of them.

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The problem, my friends, is man's heart. The Bible says that from the heart flow all of the issues of life.

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Jesus Christ himself says in Matthew 15 that it is what comes out of a man's heart that defiles him.

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Another thing that we must also reject is the religious syncretism, that is, when we compromise the exclusive claims of our faith and the gospel message of Jesus Christ for the sake of superficial unity, unity that is not had in the gospel of Jesus Christ and his unchanging word revelation in order to fight against this.

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We understand that this will allow us to see and has allowed us to see where we are.

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Our only solution, the radical transformation of hearts by the gospel of Jesus Christ, the message proclaimed that the human heart is wicked, from it flow all the issues of life, and that heart needs to be changed.

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It needs to be brought from death to life, and that can only happen by the word of the living

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God, empowered by his spirit, bringing dead sinners' hearts to life.

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And it is only the proclamation of that word that is our only hope for fighting against this injustice.

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Many of us have seen that we can no longer appeal to what we would commonly call natural law or a neutral standard of morality when it comes to abortion.

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We may have at one time, because of the wonderful history of our nations, with one voice declared that human beings have inherent dignity, value, and worth because they're made in the image of God.

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But brothers and sisters, that day has passed. There is no longer a common standard or neutral standard of morality that we can adhere to by which we can agree with our neighbor and point to together that points out the evil of this injustice.

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We must return to the word of God. As is the case in your nation and my nation, we see the destruction of the human family all around us.

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We see the destruction of marriage. We see the eradication of God's distinctions down to the very simple level of distinguishing between male and female.

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We can't even speak to many of our neighbors and agree that there is only two genders.

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Therefore, we realize that there is no longer a neutral standard of morality to hold to, and we must not compromise the exclusive claims of our faith in order to fight against abortion.

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It must be, must be centered on God's unchanging word revelation. The apostle

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Paul says in the book of Colossians chapter 2 that he's speaking to his brothers and sisters in Christ that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is

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Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

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We see that the Bible tells us that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in our Lord Jesus Christ, and so we must begin our reasoning.

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We must begin our strategy to fight against abortion with Christ at the very bottom and his word.

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That is, we must not adopt philosophies, vain reasoning that do not begin with the truth of Christ in Scripture.

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The word of God is our standard in fighting against abortion. All else is sinking sand, which means that our language, brothers and sisters, must be steeped in Scripture.

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We must not be ashamed to use the words of our King. Jesus says, for whoever is ashamed of me and my words, of him will the

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Son of Man be ashamed. And these are sobering words for us. We cannot be ashamed of the words of our

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King. We cannot speak about abortion the way that the world does. We cannot use morally neutral, non -judgmental language when we talk about the murder of unborn children in the womb.

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There are two primary foundations that the modern -day pro -life movement in my nation, and subsequently what's coming from them into your nation, have used historically in order to fight against abortion.

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Humanism and pragmatism. Humanism, as I was very pleased to see in my

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Reformed brothers' testament of their statement of faith, they noted a rejection of this.

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And so many of this will simply be preaching to the choir, but sometimes the most simplest truths are worth repeating in the very thing that we need to hear in order to be reminded.

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In my nation, there are many who fight and view this fight from a humanistic perspective in how we view those who actually commit this sin.

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Humanism seeks to elevate the worth of man's infinite value and his reason as the measuring standard rather than the

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Word of God. It seeks to puff up with pride, speaking about the self -worth, self -esteem, and self -image of abortion -bound mothers and fathers, encouraging them to decide in their own eyes between what is good and what is evil, and making divine their autonomous will, which as we all know was the lie of the serpent in Genesis chapter 3.

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The temptation came from the serpent, declaring that your eyes will be opened and you shall be as God's, knowing, being able to distinguish, being able to discern for yourselves without any revelation from God's Word good and evil.

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And so many, brothers and sisters, I pray, I wish that I could tell you so many within our pro -life movement in our nation are guiding abortion -bound women according to these same principles, and we see these kinds of things being projected here into this nation, and we tremble with fear.

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We see crisis pregnancy centers, we see pro -life counseling done in our nation talking about helping a woman decide for herself what is the right choice to make with her child without any appeal to God's scriptural directive.

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All the while claiming to be Christian, they encourage women to make the best choice for them and define abortion in terms of a woman's autonomous will that is unaccountable to anyone else, only what's doing best for her, even if that choice includes the killing of her unborn child.

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Instead of calling on women and men to obey God and his scriptural directive, much pro -life counseling seeks to help women do this very thing, which is why we cannot placate to the sensitivities of men and women who are considering this sin, and we do not in my nation when we stand outside these places of death, and you must not do it here.

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We cannot be morally neutral or non -judgmental. Everyone, all of us, brothers and sisters, are making judgments about this issue.

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From the side that is pushing this sin into your nation at a headlong pace, they are making judgments as well.

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Their judgment is that it is a noble and righteous thing to have the right to kill their own children.

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We are making judgments as well. We are making the judgment that God commands us not to murder.

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We are making the judgment that it is his standard by which we will be held accountable to, and it is him that we will stand before and give an account of all the deeds done in our lives, including the premeditation of the killing of our unborn children.

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Many in the pro -life movement would treat women who are attempting to procure abortions as unwitting victims.

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This has been many times confirmed where we are, but also as we've traveled throughout your nation in this last week and talked to many people, we've seen this very thing confirmed in the eyes of those who claim to know

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Christ in viewing women who desire to procure this sin and to normalize this sin in your nation.

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We know, though, the testimony of Scripture that, brothers and sisters, we are not victims of our consciences.

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We are violators of our consciences. Romans chapter 2, in that wonderful passage, the apostle

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Paul brings to us something very important that we cannot forget. He says in that passage that the work of God's law is written on all of our hearts, even if we have never heard the commandment not to murder.

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God has gifted us with a conscience, his testimony to us, knowing right and wrong, his gift to us.

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And it says in that passage that our conflicting thoughts either accuse or excuse us.

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And I've seen this many times in my nation as I stand outside of these places of death and plead with women not to go inside.

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We get quite a variety of reactions. It is a very dark place of ministry, but we see that there are conflicting thoughts and there are consciences that are either sensitive to our message, that are either hostile to our message, or that are either seared to our message.

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Any one of these responses that we get, we see the truth of God's Word come to life in such a way that it's beyond description, as their conflicting thoughts either accuse them, and as a result, there's a reaction of hostility against the message of the gospel and the truth of what they're doing, or we see their conflicting thoughts excuse them, in which you hear phrases like,

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I can murder my child and God will forgive me. These are the kinds of things that we hear in my nation, outside these places of death, many professing

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Christians going into these slaughterhouses, these modern -day holocaust centers, and women claiming to know

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Jesus Christ, to have experienced his grace and forgiveness, and to simply say, God will forgive me.

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The other tool that we must reject, that my nation has tried to use in fighting against abortion, having to do with the application to how we fight against it, is pragmatism, which is essentially, the ends justify any godless means that we use to get there.

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And in this way, there is no talk of sin, there is no talk of murder, there is no talk of repentance, and the need for Jesus, but there is speaking about abortion in a way that diminishes the seriousness of such a vile sin, so that women who are potentially emotionally unstable, will not go through with this act, is the hope of many.

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Our pro -life movement has sought to, by any means, save the bodies of babies, while failing to minister to the eternal souls of women, but God has not called us to abandon truth, or to soften our scriptural foundation for the sake of results or progress.

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He is just as concerned with the means as he is with the ends, and so we must be faithful to God's word in this fight, even when it looks like we aren't winning.

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Although the temptation to abandon scriptural means may make vanquishing this evil more feasible, our methods for ending abortion cannot be whatever works.

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The apostle Paul says, shall we do evil that good may come, may it never be, and thus having the proper diagnosis of the human condition that the word of God provides us, allows us to use his means to defeat abortion.

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So I want to lay out for you, as efficiently as I can, a foundation in order to be able to condemn abortion from the very beginning.

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We know the revelation of scripture that God is the creator of all life, and every life, regardless of the circumstance that that life has come into being.

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God is the creator of all life, and so to say that abortion is not murder, to say that abortion is not murder, one must say that God is not the creator of all life, and thus assume an unbiblical worldview.

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God has created men and women in his image, and this, and this alone, is the basis for man's worth and value.

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Man's value is not grounded in relation to his neighbor, but to his maker. In the past,

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Christians have appealed to a moral common ground, or a neutral standard that was held to, even if they weren't Christian.

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This is now gone, and we see that in a view like this, establishing the value of man within our modern -day pro -life movement in my nation, is done by looking horizontally at his neighbor, who is merely at a different stage of development.

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We've interviewed many of the top -level executives, leaders of the pro -life movement, and this is how they choose to define the value of a human being in relation to the neighbor sitting next to them, rather than appealing to the image of God inherent within unborn children as the basis for protecting them.

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But this is folly. Seeing as man will not be held accountable for how he exemplified the image of his neighbor, but he will stand before God and give account on the basis of his living up to the image of his creator.

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Jay Adams has a wonderful quote on this. He says, To thwart the abortion movement, many well -meaning

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Christians unintentionally exalt man by declaring him to be of infinite worth. Abortion should not be fought on the basis that killing a human being is wrong because he or she is so valuable, but on the basis that when a child bearing

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God's image is slaughtered, it is God who is attacked because that child bears his image.

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If you tear up a picture of my wife, you'll have me to answer to, not because of the intrinsic worth or value of the paper and print that you destroyed, but because you have insulted my wife.

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An attack on the image of God is serious, not because of man's supposed great worth, but because of the one whose image he reflects.

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And unfortunately, the basis of appealing to men and women according to their infinite value and worth has been the strategy of the pro -life movement in my nation, not the fact that this is an image bearer of God, not the fact that this child is meant to be worshiping

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God and enjoying God forever. They will not use this kind of terminology.

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They will use terminology that seeks to exalt the infinite value of man.

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We see in the Psalms, in Psalm 139, David reflecting in wonder over God's creativity in the womb, which the word womb is where we derive our

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English term for mercy. Psalm 139, verse 13 through 16 says, you formed my inward parts.

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You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

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Wonderful are your works. My soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you.

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When I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed substance.

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In your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

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This is a passage that we often read outside of abortion clinics in my nation, speaking the word of God in hopes that it will find the conscience of women and men going inside so that they turn away from these places of death.

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But just listen to the way that David describes unborn children in the womb of their mothers.

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He says, you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb.

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And the picture that we get here, brothers and sisters, is that of a grand weaver and a grand designer bringing all the threads together within the creative art studio that is the womb.

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We see God the grand weaver weaving together all of this intricate design inside of the womb.

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My frame was not hidden from you. Literally speaking, my bones, my skeletal structure, my body was not hidden from you when

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I was being made in secret in this intricate weaving together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance.

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This word literally means embryo. It's Golmi in the

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Hebrew, but embryo, God speaking directly to and in regards to unborn children in the womb, talking about a child in the womb that is at an early stage of its development but is not finished yet, still developing in the womb.

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God speaking directly to this issue, the issue of life in the womb, how he is the creator of all life, how he forms us all inside of our mother's wombs in his mercy.

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We praise together with the psalmist, miraculous and wonderful are your works.

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We see in your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me when as yet there was none of them.

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God is not just numbering our days in the womb, but he is forming the future before our hearts begin to beat, giving meaning to every breath.

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Ecclesiastes 11 .5 says, as you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything and establishing the value of the unborn child in the womb as we have, as God's word does.

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We now reach an inescapable conclusion about this. Abortion is murder.

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It is the unjustified and premeditated taking of life with malice aforethought.

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The psalmist asked one of the most crucial questions in the scriptures by saying in Psalm chapter 8, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him?

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For you made him a little while lower than the angels and have crowned him with dominion and honor and have set all things in subjection under his feet.

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Such a crucial question for our two societies today because this question is answered in so many different ways.

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Man is not a random collection of molecules arriving after a long period of chance events as many would have us believe.

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Neither is he just another insubstantial part of mother nature just another animal no different from other biological organisms that find themselves as part of the fundamental oneness of all things.

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You see only in the Christian worldview, only in the biblical worldview do we have the proper distinctions between man as God's image bearer who is set in the garden of Eden as we see in Genesis to cultivate human culture and creation to be

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God's vice regents, his vassals, his light bearers in the world to construct a house suitable for him to image

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God and all the earth. We see the proper distinctions between male and female as created in the image of God equally valuable.

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Only in the biblical worldview do we have that and only in the biblical worldview with those proper distinctions being made between man as the image of God and all other creatures do we find the sure foundation to speak against abortion.

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The primary theme that I wanted to speak with you about tonight that I believe is so important in the scriptures and to understand because as we speak against this issue of abortion we have to understand something very important.

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Abortion is not just a sin or a transgression committed by individuals.

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We must see it as God sees it and as the way he sees it in his word and his revelation as an issue of national sin not merely the sin of individuals and this is tied to the concept of covenant.

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God is a God of covenant in his revelation. As a matter of fact the bible

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God's word is the book of the covenant. It's his written revelation of himself and the story of his relationship to us.

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Many in the western evangelical church would deny this. They would deny that abortion is an issue of national sin.

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They would deny that this idea of covenant in which nations are covenanted to God and are thus held responsible for the sins that we allow.

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They would deny this but we believe that it's crucial for understanding this fight against the war against the unborn.

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The doctrine of the covenant is largely misunderstood or altogether discarded in the modern evangelical church in the west but it is as follows.

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God enters into a relationship with man and establishes a legal bond on the basis of specified terms and in that bond he promises life for obedience and death for disobedience.

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Oaths are taken in the process to verify the covenant. We see that in the garden

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Adam broke covenant with God and plunged the world into sinful rebellion.

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In opposition to the law word of God. Sinning with a high hand against him.

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In the offspring of Adam and Eve we see the first act of the shedding of innocent blood and Cain murdering his brother

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Abel and God even in that moment pursuing Cain telling

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Cain that his brother's blood cries out to him from the ground and this doctrine that the scriptures teach us all throughout the bible of blood guiltiness is something that is upon my nation and something that we wish to warn you about here in your nation.

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After the destruction of mankind in the flood God institutes capital punishment in Genesis chapter 9 verse 6 and in this we see his concern for justice righteousness and the preservation of human life so that his redemptive purposes are realized through the human family.

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We see this concern extend to the unborn in the giving of the law to the nation of Israel in Exodus chapter 21 in which

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God's law is so specific that he says in that passage that if a pregnant woman is struck even unintentionally in such a way as to cause miscarriage by way of a struggle between two other men you shall repay life for life.

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That's how much God values the life of the unborn child in the womb. You have examples of case law in the

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Old Testament declaring that the unborn child has just as much value as any other image bearer of God by the way that God's law defines that value.

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Many in opposition to us would see something like such justice being upheld for these children the demanding of life for life as too harsh of a punishment as something to be looked down upon as something crazy or barbaric, but it testifies to the reality of God's care and protection of his image bearers born and unborn.

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We see in the Scriptures that God's relationship to his nation Israel is always expressed in terms of covenants just like marriage.

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There's a covenant. God joins his bride to himself as his special people in a legal arrangement.

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God specifically tells the Israelites that he will render his judgment on them for committing the same sins as the

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Canaanites and other pagan nations before them. If you have your Bibles I'd like for you to see this for yourself in Leviticus chapter 18 verse 21.

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Listen to this description in God's Word in verse 19. I'll start in you shall not approach a woman to uncover her nakedness while she is in her menstrual uncleanness and you shall not lie sexually with your neighbor's wife and so make yourself unclean with her.

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You shall not give any of your children to offer them to Moloch and so profane the name of your

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God I and the Lord. God's speaking to his people in the book of Leviticus warning them that he will dispossess their nation for committing the same sins as the pagan nations before them and we see that one of those sins national sins habitual national sins is the offering up of their sons and daughters to Moloch.

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That was an idol associated with the worship of state the worship of man's rule in which mothers and fathers would approach an idol in the shape of a bull's head with arms that would come out and in the belly of this idol there was a fire that was stoked to heat and mothers and fathers would offer their children into this idol's belly and burn them until there was nothing left incinerating them.

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We see that one of the national sins for which God judges these pagan nations and promises his people that he will literally have the land spew them out is infanticide and infanticide and abortion are both tools of pagan nations that were adopted in scripture as means of worshiping the state essentially.

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God says that the land will literally vomit out its inhabitants when nations commit this sin.

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This concept is tied to and it must be understood in light of the cult of creature worship versus the worship of the creator.

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In the cult of creature worship man worships a reflection of himself rather than worshiping and reflecting the image of God.

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In a culture like yours and mine now that exchange the truth about God for a lie as it says in Romans chapter 1 we say that man can be as God and worship and serve creation not the creator and in the personification of nature with various gods of which man is a part man worships himself and his own will and idea usually in the form of a state a king or an emperor.

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We see these examples in scripture in Egypt during the time of Moses Pharaoh ordering the sons of Israel to be slaughtered and Jesus entering the world in the same circumstances and infanticide.

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In the worship of the creature abortion becomes practical something that curbs population growth as the state deems or preserves mother nature whose balance we're told is being upset by carbon footprints or carbon emissions.

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In this view of the world proper distinctions as we already discussed are eliminated. The worship of Moloch was essentially state worship and its practice is steeped in religious paganism and occultism as we see in Deuteronomy chapter 18.

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It's interesting in Arizona we've seen the spiritual nature of this fight and the reality that we do not war against flesh and blood in coming into this fight even though what's at stake in this battle is just that flesh and blood.

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We've seen satanists, we've seen occultists stand against us in our ministry at the places where this is happening.

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A recent advertisement that I watched that centered on the repealing of your eighth amendment really brought home once again the spiritual nature of this fight.

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There were women in this ad that identified themselves, I don't know if you've seen it, were willing to identify themselves as witches and they were taking up the mantle of saying we are not the witches that you once burned at the stake but we will identify with them.

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And we see so much occultism and satanism in this ministry that we're in, many people involved in it to such a point where it bleeds through when we're out at these places of death.

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The things that come out of their mouths, the things that they say. But the question that all of us need to ask ourselves is if such a sin is steeped in pagan occultism and spiritism and the worship of creature and you have the opposing side willing with such venom to take up that mantle even if the charge being brought is not true, obviously we do not want to burn at the stake anyone.

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But if you have a group of people that are so willing to identify in their hatred of God and their hatred of children with that, the question is why aren't

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Christians in Ireland and in the United States willing to take up the mantle of a prophet and call them to repentance for their sin, for their hatred of a

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God that they know exists. The root of the sin of abortion is tied back to the fall and originates in the first temptation as we've seen.

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In our cultures the concept of choice has become the divine right according to famous abortionists like Dr.

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Willie Parker. Dr. Willie Parker and other men like him in my nation are prolific abortionists.

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They travel the nation killing as many as 30 and 50 children a day and they are weaving a new theology of abortion and perpetuating this in my nation in which the divine right of a woman to choose what to do with her body is actually her participating in the image of God in either creating life or destroying the life that is within her.

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And this is the new theology that we see emerging in these places. In my nation we offer up our children on the altar of our godhood which is why as we were talking with our brothers and sisters last night who pointed this out the context of abortion is always religious apostasy.

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It is always a nation that has rejected God, his word, his standards, and has descended into idolatry and to the worship of creature rather than the worship of the one true creator.

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Scripture tells us righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.

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In God's word he did set his particular covenant affections on Israel but scripture also evidences that he deals covenantally with all nations.

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I want to read to you a passage from the book of Amos chapter 1 if you'd like to turn there. The oracles of Amos talking against a pagan nation as we've seen in God's word he not only warrants his people that the land will disinherit them for committing those same sins but this example that I want to show you is so explicit and so specific it allows us further context in Amos chapter 1 verse 13.

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Thus says the Lord for three transgressions of the Ammonites and for four

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I will not revoke the punishment because they have ripped open pregnant women in Gilead that they might enlarge their border so I will kindle a fire in the wall of Rabbah and it shall devour her strongholds with shouting on the day of battle with a tempest in the day of the whirlwind and their king shall go into exile he and his princes together says the

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Lord God dealing with a pagan nation implicitly in covenant to him obviously because he holds them accountable for their sin can we say and claim ignorance for pagan nations are pagan nations exempt from God's judgment if so then why does he hold them accountable why does he talk about in his word sending judgment against them for the ripping open of their pregnant women as we see in the oracle of Amos we see for three transgressions of the

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Ammonites and for four meaning that this sin has become so habitual so constant so commonplace

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God cannot relent he will not relent he will not revoke the punishment he will bring his calamity on these nations in other words the

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Ammonites had filled up the measure of their iniquities and were ripe for ruin the truth of scripture testifies to the fact that all of us are in covenant with God and accountable to his unchanging standards no one else's individually we either stand in Adam or in Christ in one of two federal heads one of two federal representatives covenantally united to Adam in death or covenantally united to the last

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Adam Jesus Christ and raised a new life in Acts chapter 17 verse 26 we're told that from the one man

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Adam came every nation of mankind Hosea chapter 6 tells us that Adam our first federal head transgressed the covenant in the garden but in other places in scripture such as first kings chapter 11 tells us how

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Israel under Solomon transgressed the covenant of God by offering their sons and daughters up for slaughter just like the pagan nations before them the book of Jeremiah details that as a result

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God delivers up Israel to its enemies for committing this sin these passages and many others that I could show you link the sin of child sacrifice with the breaking of the covenant yes

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God did set his particular covenant affections on Israel but scripture evidences that he deals covenantally with all nations and the proof of this brothers and sisters is in Isaiah chapter 24 verse 4 the earth mourns and withers the world languishes and withers the highest people of the earth languish the earth lies defiled under its inhabitants for they have transgressed the laws violated the statutes broken the everlasting covenant therefore a curse devours the earth and its inhabitants suffer for their guilt therefore the inhabitants of the earth are scorched and few men are left as you well know our nations

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Ireland and the United States were once nations that were covenanted to our Lord Jesus Christ men and women faithful Christians founded this territory in both of our nations with the explicit cause of advancing the reign of Jesus Christ and his kingdom and his gospel that was the purpose for which they were going about the establishment of the colonies in my nation and in this nation as you well know we have compacts covenants to demonstrate this the

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Mayflower compact in my nation the solemn league oath we see in Britain and Scotland and Ireland we see that this fact of covenant is so common throughout our nation's history the taking of oaths and courts of law our

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United States president when they were being sworn into office they would be elected and sworn in they would place their hand on an open bible the chapters of Deuteronomy 27 and 28 acknowledging the covenant curses and blessings of God upon the nation but as we see today this is no longer the case our nations have indeed broken covenant with God they've transgressed law my nation has challenged virtually every creational norm in scripture from the nature of marriage sexuality human identity and the sanctity of human life and through this we must see something very important national sins like abortion are not harbingers of God's judgment they are

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God's judgment no nation that murders its own children has any expectation of blessing from God it's a common slogan in my nation

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God bless America God has every right to continue to judge my nation into calamity and we have no expectation of God to bless it so the questions are what happens to a nation under God's judgment a nation under judgment is first given over to their sin we see this in the book of Romans chapter one we see that language that Paul uses that says the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth for what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them for his invisible attributes namely his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world and the things that have been made so they are without excuse for although they knew

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God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him but became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened claiming to be wise they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal

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God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things therefore what does it say

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God gave them up God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves and then it talks about this cosmic deconstruction the breaking down of the family and and and gender and male and female and and men going after men as with women and vice versa and we see this deconstruction and that God says that those who practice such things we know that they're worthy of death but they not only do them they give hearty approval to others who practice them in a nation under judgment we lose our ability to punish evil and reward righteousness ecclesiastes chapter 8 verse 11 says because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily the heart of the children of man is emboldened to do evil in a nation under judgment we protect evildoers with unjust tyrannical laws and this is seen most clearly in my nation in the

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Roe versus Wade infamous court opinion which is just that by the way it is a court opinion it is not law

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Congress is the only branch of government in my nation allowed to make law and so this unjust court opinion must be rejected and ignored for the sake of the pre -born child in the womb but this is what happens brothers and sisters the psalmist refers to this as framing injustice by statute psalm chapter 94 can wicked rulers be allied with you those who frame injustice by statute they band together against the life of the righteous and condemn the innocent to death in a nation under judgment

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God gives his people over to his enemies and destines them to the sword at their hand

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God finally having enough repays with his vengeance for the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish those nations shall be utterly laid waste so what does

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God do when his nations his people break covenant what does he do when they transgress his laws push him push his authoritative word out of the public square seal it up inside the walls safely of our homes and our churches what happens to a nation that descends on such a slippery slope into idolatry and rebellion against God and his covenant does abortion mean that God's purposes are somehow thwarted no we know that the

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God that we serve declares the end from the beginning he does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say to him what have you done

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God's judgment is not merely an unpleasant thing although it is but it is so much more than that scripture sees

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God's judgment not just as calamity not just as devastation but as something to be welcomed by his people because it means that God is sweeping aside something to be replaced by something else the

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God that we serve the God of scripture is the Bible says shaking the nations in his judgment and why is he doing that why is he shaking the nation so that what is unshakable may remain and so that what is shaken passes away and is cleared from the top layer the dross is cleared away and the purity of the sons of God can come to the surface scripture tells us that God always preserves for himself a remnant of his people and he sends a prophetic witness amongst his people in every nation to remind the people of his covenant

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God sends his legal emissaries the prophets to warn covenant breakers they bring covenant lawsuit acting as prosecuting attorneys

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Isaiah chapter 58 says cry aloud do not hold back lift up your voice like a trumpet declare to my people their transgression to the house of Jacob their sins how are we obeying that in our nation brothers and sisters how am

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I obeying that in the United States how are you obeying that here in your nation in Ireland are we lifting up our voice are we declaring to the people of our nation their transgression to the house of Jacob their sins purpose of prophecy in the scripture of the office of a prophet the role of a prophet is not merely future telling not describing what's to come merely the office of a prophet and the role of a prophet is to evaluate man's ethical response to God's word to go to the people and confirm just as our

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Lord and Savior came in his coming and evaluated the covenantal response of people that were supposed to know him people that had his law but inwardly remain unchanged had hearts that were not set towards them set towards him honoring him with their lips and meanwhile their hearts were far from him this is the role of a prophet and no one better exemplified this than of course than our

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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ taking up the true mantle of a prophet our nations need a prophetic witness that speaks to the heart this witness needs to be public public take the example of the apostles in the book of acts going into the public realm not keeping the message of God the word of God the gospel of the kingdom imprisoned within the walls of their congregations taking the words of the living

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God into collision with the prevailing ideals of their day into collision with the magistrates standing before kings and governors calling them to obey

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Jesus because God has fixed the day by which he will judge the living and the dead by a man that he is appointed and he has furnished evidence for all by raising him from the dead psalm 2 a great messianic psalm tells us that satan stirs up the nations against God it says that the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel against the

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Lord and against his anointed saying let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us he who sits in the heavens laughs the

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Lord will hold them in derision he will terrify them in his fury and at his coming and he gives the kings of the earth a warning he says be wise oh kings be warned obey the sun or you'll perish kiss the sun pay homage to him for his wrath is quickly kindled blessed are all who take refuge in him this is the kind of witness that our nations need in order to fight against the sin of abortion and what is the hope that you and i have the only hope that you and i have the gospel of Jesus Christ and it sounds so simple it sounds like a common

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Christian slogan it sounds just like a stereotypical answer but it's the truth what's our hope for seeing the murder of unborn children end what's our hope to see those who are set on abortion reoriented toward the worship of the true