Keep sharing good news without ads.
Live at the Arizona State Capitol!
Welcome everybody. This is the rally, the gathering of believers in our Lord Jesus Christ, focusing on the abolition of abortion in our nation, but specifically here in the state of Arizona. So praise God.
Thank you all for joining us. I want to read you guys, everybody, a verse here from the word of the living God. Proverbs chapter 24, verse 10, is an anchor verse for many in this movement to preserve and save lives.
It says, if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death. Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, behold, we did not know this.
Does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it? And will he not repay man according to his work? The problem in our nation is not merely political. It's not a problem of the need of political salvation.
The problem in our nation is sin. We are sinners before a holy God. There is only one God. We are all unique creations of this one God in his image, and we are all fallen, separated from God, and rebels.
Our salvation is not going to come through any political messiah. It's not going to come through the state. Salvation only comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus is the God-man. God and the person of Christ condescended, took on flesh, lived a righteous and sinless perfect life, the life of justice that we all have failed, and he died in the place of his people.
He rose again from the dead. He has ascended, and he is seated on his throne. Jesus is reigning now. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Now, I want to just say as we start this rally and we gather together as believers to ask God for mercy on our nation and ask him to preserve justice for the pre-born that we consider the words that I just spoke, King of kings and Lord of lords.
There might be somebody here with that on a t-shirt. In my fear, I say this often to the body that I'm called to care for, I'm concerned that as Christians in this generation and in our nation, that has become nothing more than a pithy slogan, Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords.
Have you thought about what that means, that Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth? Have you thought about the great commission passage, Matthew 28, 18 through 20? When Jesus ascended, he said before he did to his people, he said, all authority in heaven, and here it comes, and on earth, has been given to me.
And on that basis, he says, go therefore and disciple the nations. He says to baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And he says, teach them to obey. Abortion isn't the only sin in our land.
It's not the only sin in our hearts. We've defied the living God, and our only hope is salvation, forgiveness, and redemption in Jesus Christ. However, abortion is a premier sin in our nation. We are guilty of blood in our streets for many, many years.
Upwards of 3 ,000 children die in our nation every day in the safe place of the wombs of their mother. Up to 3 ,000 a day. Let's admit something as believers here, as citizens, that's incomprehensible.
You can't comprehend it. And I want to say, I'm looking at the faces right now of Christians, leaders of ministries that by God's grace, we're able to help raise up from across the country, who are out daily at the killing facilities, saving lives through the work of End Abortion Now.
It's just the ministry of Apologia Church. We're just a Christian church. That's it. Preaching the gospel. We've been able to raise up churches and help them and equip them, and they've gone out. Thousands and thousands and thousands of children are alive today because of the work of Christians going to the abortion facilities, preaching the gospel, saving lives.
There are children among you today who were saved because Christians acted, preserved justice, preached the gospel. Babies around here today who are alive, who are in danger of abortion. Some of them multiple times, and God preserved them through the work of Christians.
We're here to uphold justice. Premierly our foundation is the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're calling our nation to repentance and faith and to come unto the lordship of Jesus Christ. Our goal in this issue is to establish justice.
What justice? God's justice. That we would protect and preserve human life, image bearers of God, in the womb. As we start this discussion today, I want to remind you of something. You win. You win this argument.
It is irrefutable. Not only from a biblical position, number one, it's in the image of God. God commands you, you shall not murder. That law still applies today, and it always will. It's based upon God's character.
God is love. Love does no harm to its neighbor. Jesus says, premierly, you are to love God and love your neighbors. Next, here's the irrefutable part of this discussion. It's what many of these media who are around here today need to start accepting.
You can't touch this argument. What's in the womb, biologically speaking, is distinct from its mother and father. It is human from conception. So I want to say to every far-left, radical Democrat who resists justice for humans, you've already lost this discussion.
Give up. We will not stop until we establish justice for pre-born human beings in the womb. This is the premier issue of justice in our day. And I do believe that there is no reason to ask God to bless America while we're still killing our children.
So we need to call our nation to repentance. We need to call our communities to repentance. And if you don't know Christ today, I'm going to call you to come to Him for life. Repent and believe the gospel.
I want to introduce you to one of the men that I look to for help, for encouragement. He is, by the way, responsible for what you see right now. I know all of us say it's all to God's glory, and that is the absolute truth.
But God uses means to bring things about. He uses people to preach the message. And what got me into this fight, what got Apologia Church into this fight, and therefore many of you into this fight, was a message delivered by Rusty Thomas in the film Babies Are Murdered Here.
It was the message that broke me. It was the message that broke my wife, my family, our church, and it got us into this fight. So there are ways that God moves in this world to bring about His purposes, and the man who's coming after me is the man who's responsible for what you see today.
Reverend Rusty Thomas is an evangelist, writer, speaker, and minister. He is the National Director for Operation Save America, which is committed to protecting the fatherless and abolishing abortion in the name of Jesus Christ.
He is also the founder and director of Elijah Ministries. Reverend Thomas is husband to his lovely wife, Kendra, father to 13 children, and grandfather to 18. Please welcome Reverend Rusty Thomas.
January 22nd, 1973. In the year of our Lord, 1973. This is another day that will go down in infamy in the history of the United States of America. It was on that dreadful day that the Supreme Court stepped out of its lawful jurisdiction and it released an iniquitous decree that we know as Roe versus Wade.
This legal fiction and pretend legislation replaced America's covenant with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It replaced it with a covenant of death. And this covenant of death has produced the culture of death that is savaging our nation to this very day.
Brothers and sisters, citizens of America, if you want to understand the reason why we are at this pitiful and pathetic state in the United States of America, look no further than child sacrifice, the shedding of innocent blood, and parading our sin like Sodom.
Our national abominations have reached heaven and now national calamity has become our lot. In the name of law, Roe versus Wade established lawlessness. In the name of the Constitution, Roe violated the Constitution.
In the name of a woman's right to choose, Roe established a grave wrong. In the name of justice, Roe established injustice. As Americans, we must understand this truth. The law is not just punitive in nature.
The law is a teacher. The scriptures tell us plainly that the law, I'm talking about God's holy commandment, is a tutor to lead us to Christ, that we might be established by faith. So what is this so-called law, Roe, taught the United States of America?
What impact has Roe upon the United States of America? As mentioned, it turned law into lawlessness. It turned women's healthcare into a hellish practice. It turned mothers who are called by God to be nurturers, to bind the wounds of life into accomplices to the murder of their own sons and daughters.
And I know that is hard to hear, but it is the truth. And unless we accept and understand the truth, our sin remains, and there's no deliverance from this evil. It has turned fathers who are called to protect and provide and care for women and children.
It has turned them into passive, irresponsible males who sire children and raise none. It has turned the church who is called to love their neighbor as themselves, to rescue those unjustly sentenced to death, to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves.
They have turned the church of the living God into complacency and complicity with this national evil. It turned the state who is ordained by our founding documents to defend our life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.
It has turned the state into tyranny. We are under an oppressive regime, and we must understand that. And why is that? Because God promised us in his word, if you shed the blood of children, you commit child sacrifice.
He says the land is polluted and defiled with the blood. This angers the Lord. And what does the anger of the Lord look like in the real world? Those that hate you will rule over you. It has turned this culture, the American culture, that abandoned self-government is the key to liberty into anarchy.
So we got tyranny on one hand and anarchy on the other hand, and they're meeting in the middle to destroy our future liberties and our freedoms. And most important, where's brothers at? And I really want you to take a good look at this.
Roe versus Wade turned our children into this. Now, please do not turn away. This is not just an issue. This is not just rhetoric. This is what abortion on demand does to precious children who are made in the image of God.
And how in the world can this nation look at that and deny the self-evident truth? We are greatly deceived, and we are under major, major delusion. God, break this stronghold in Jesus' name. So we are here, brothers and sisters, and we are here in a spirit of repentance to bring forth fruit, meat for repentance.
And how are we going to do this? We have a bill of abolition. Everybody say amen. Amen. And Walt Blackmun's bill of abolition, I believe it is our David's stone, and it is aimed at the forehead of the Goliath of this age, abortion on demand.
This bill will not tolerate compromise. Really important. It is not going to reach across the aisle and make a deal with the devil. We're done with that. It will not seek to regulate baby murder, but once and for all, end it in the mighty name of Jesus.
Brothers and sisters, it is time for Arizona and our nation to repent and acknowledge the truth. Amen. It is time to understand the kingdom of God is at hand. It is time to establish justice that God in his mercy might cleanse this land and us from blood guilt.
Amen. All those in agreement, say amen. A woman is not necessary. So brothers and sisters, listen, keep your hand to this kingdom plow. Do not look back. Amen. Stay faithful to your Lord and keep pressing on to the high calling prize in Jesus' name.
God bless you, saints.
Pete Pearson is a discipleship pastor at Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona, where he has served since 2010 as one of the founding pastors. He also co-founded Apologia Radio in 2012, Apologia Studios in 2015, and End Abortion Now in 2016.
In 2020, Luke helped establish Red State Reform and Action for Life and serves on the board of directors as chairman of the board. Luke Pearson and his wife, Cheryl, live in Gilbert, Arizona with their three children.
Please give a warm welcome to Luke Pearson.
Got to raise this up. Sorry. Welcome, everyone. How about this weather? Amen. There's a lot of people from out of state. You're welcome. We actually were anticipating rain today, so God bless us with sunshine and a little bit of cloud cover.
So thank you again for everyone that's here. Thank you for your desire to end the slaughter of our pre-born neighbors. Thank you to everyone, especially who has helped in any way to make this rally a success.
I can tell you there's a lot of volunteers from Apologia Church that have been amazing. And I especially want to thank, again, all of you who have traveled from out of state just to come and support our efforts here in Arizona.
That truly blesses and encourages. I can't tell you. This is amazing. I don't know how many people are here, but this is incredible. But being here today takes courage, and that's what I want to speak to you about today is courage.
And speaking of courage, I got to thank Brother Rusty, one of the most courageous men I've ever met in my life, who's inspired. Yes, none of this would be here today if it wasn't for Rusty. So thank you, brother.
But what is courage? I don't have time today to fully exegete this passage, but I do believe we can biblically define courage from Deuteronomy 31 .6. It says, be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you.
He will not leave you or forsake you. So from this passage, we can see that biblical courage is strong. It does not fear nor dread the enemy. Why is this? What is the root of this strength? It is knowing that the Lord your God goes with you.
It is knowing that he will not leave you nor forsake you. And in the New Testament, we see in 1 Corinthians 16 .13, it says to be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men. Not a dude in a dress.
Be strong. So here we ascertain that the biblical courage is watchful. It stands firm in the faith. It acts like a man. And again, it is strong. Lastly, looking at Proverbs 24 .10, who Pastor Jeff quoted at the beginning, verse 10, it says, if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.
So biblical courage does not faint in the day of adversity, but produces great strength. We all know the saying, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. This is precisely what this proverb is describing.
When faced with adversity, biblical courage girds its loins, it buckles up buttercup. All that to say, I cannot tell you enough how thankful I am for Walt Blackman. He's an absolute blessing and a tremendous breath of fresh air and a definite answer to prayer.
I can tell you three years of prayer brought us Walt Blackman. And if I had to pick one word to describe him, it would be courageous. He spent 21 years in the US Army. He earned a Bronze Star for his combat action as a tank commander in Iraq.
And now, as a state rep here in Arizona, he is attempting to immediately put an end to legalized murder of our pre-born neighbors. Once and for all, courage has defined Walt's entire adult life. I've personally witnessed Walt standing strong during times of adversity.
When he's been personally attacked in the media, seen some awful things said about him this last year. His family's received threats, but he has been watchful, he has stood firm, and he has acted like a man.
And now, more than ever, as Walt faces a new enemy, he needs our support. As the pro-death supporters and the coward conservatives come knocking, he needs to remain courageous. And in order for him to remain courageous, he needs us to remind him that we have his back and that he can count on us for our support.
I have no doubts that God is doing something great here in Arizona, but we need your help. We need your support, and we need your prayers. Please ask God's protection for us, and please ask God to give us courage and to help us stand firm in the face of adversity.
So one last thing here, I'm going to put all my peeps from Apology of Church, I'm putting you on the spot. So I'm going to ask you a question, and I need you guys to respond loud and clear so the world can hear.
So right now, we're going through, we're in Catechism, question number 30. Ready, guys? How does Christ perform the office of a king? In subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.
Psalm 110, 1 through 2, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter, rule in the midst of your enemies. Soli Deo Gloria, and no king but Christ.
All right, hey, those things just embarrass me anyway, so. All right, hey, do you love babies? I'm sorry, what? Yes. Hey, I do too. That's why I'm here. My wife and I, we actually, we have nine on this earth.
We have three that have already passed on before us, but we love babies. And I love them for lots of reasons. They're cute. They're so cute. We love, we just had twins, our second set of twins last month, actually.
So yes, we're very grateful to the Lord for that. And so we're very, very blessed. But I love them, not just because they're cute, but I love them most of all, because 2 ,000 years ago, God came to earth as a baby.
He came to earth through the womb of his mother, Mary, and he came to save us from our sins and to teach us what love is. And that's why we're here, to express the love that he's shown to us, to show that to others, to love our neighbors who are not yet born.
That's why we're here. That's his ambassadors. So we're here, first and foremost, to glorify and serve him. The people in this building have sworn an oath. They've sworn an oath. The members of this legislature have solemnly sworn to support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the state of Arizona, to bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and defend them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of their offices, according to the best of their abilities, so help them God.
That's what they've sworn to do, and that's what we're here rallying to urge them to do. Do what you've sworn to do. Do you believe, I'm asking you, do you believe that a fetus, as people would say, a person in a fetal state of development, do you believe that a fetus is a human being?
Yes, from the moment of fertilization. In our Constitution, it calls them persons, right? And when our founders wrote that, they weren't thinking of, like many of the pro-abortion crowd used to say, well, a person is someone who has sentience and this, no, person means human being, right?
Person means every single human being. So do you believe that a fetus is a person? That the founders meant human beings when they said persons? Yes, well, the 14th Amendment says that no state shall deny the equal protection of the laws to persons within their jurisdiction.
I'm a law here, okay? That applies to everybody, every person, every human being. Guess what? Although the Constitution requires equal protection for every person, there's not a single bill that has ever been filed in this state that has treated a fetus like a person, until now, until now.
There has not been a bill filed in the state that has ever before treated the life of a person before they are born as being equally valuable as after they are born, until now, until now. No bill in the state has ever provided equal protection to the pre-born, until now, until this bill, HB 2650 by Representative Blackmon.
Do you believe, I'm gonna ask you again, another question. Do you believe that Roe versus Wade is unconstitutional? It's unconstitutional. Well, the Constitution says what the supreme law of the land is.
The supremacy clause says this Constitution and the laws which shall be made in pursuance thereof shall be the supreme law of the land. Is Roe v Wade made pursuant to the Constitution? No, it's not just unconstitutional, it's anti-constitutional.
It violates the principles of the Constitution. And if it's unconstitutional, why are so many people saying it's the law of the land? It's not the law of the land, it's not. But no bill has ever been filed in this state that followed the Constitution and treated Roe versus Wade like it's not the law of the land.
No bill's ever been filed like that in this state, until now, until now. No bill has ever been filed in the state that treated Roe versus Wade like it really is unconstitutional, until now. And the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution says that the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states and to the people.
But no bill has ever been filed in the state on the issue of abortion that has tried to exercise that power reserved to this state until now, until now. For 48 years, we have been saying in the pro-life movement that a fetus is a person and that Roe versus Wade is unconstitutional, we've been saying that.
That's not anything new to say those things. But for the last five decades, virtually none of the bills that the establishment pro-life lobby has been putting forward, hundreds by the thousands, none of them, virtually none of them, have done what we say we believe, have treated a fetus as a person.
It's treated Roe versus Wade like it's unconstitutional. And it hasn't happened in this state, again, until now. We need to act on what we believe, and House Bill 2650, which has been courageously filed by representative black men, changes all of that.
Changes all of that in this state. So to the legislatures in this building, we say that a new day has come. No more compromise, no more surrendering, no more waiting. It's time to exercise the constitutional powers of this state to abolish abortion here.
We the people will no longer tolerate laws that tolerate abortion. We the people will no longer accept bills that merely regulate abortion. We the people demand that these legislators support HB 2650 and act on what they say they believe when they ask you for your vote.
Do what they say that they're gonna do when you voted for them. So we call on them to defend the Constitution, to obey, to fulfill their oath, to support the Constitution, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and to defend those constitutions of this state and the US government against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of their offices according to the best of their abilities, and it's time for them to fulfill their oaths by abolishing abortion in Arizona, so help them God.
Dennis got an opportunity to go to Japan to continue his playing career. It was in Japan that God saved him. Since 2015, Dennis and Jada have been involved in EAN because of their love for babies and wanting to protect the ones in the womb.
In 2020, after having his right hip replaced due to injury, he started to work with Red State Reform and Action for Life. He will fight for the unborn as long as God wants him to. Please welcome Dennis Cervantes.
I don't know how I'm gonna follow that up over the last three, so I'm gonna try my best here. What is Red State Reform? Many of you probably wanna know. We're a grassroots foundation. What we're gonna do as a lobbying group is we're gonna hold representatives accountable.
I have not seen too many like Representative Walt Blackman. He's amazing. Let's give Walt another hand. So like it said, I'm a professional baseball player, last 20 years. Did not grow up in a Christian home, was not a Christian until I got saved in 2012.
Let me touch back on my wife's story. So my wife, her biological mother and father met at a truck stop in Tucson, Arizona, conceived her, and instead of choosing to have an abortion, chose life. Greatest woman, I've never met her.
The only thing I can think of is extreme gratitude. My wife got saved in her early teens, led her mom and dad to the Lord. Her dad became a pastor. And when I met her, I know he was probably thinking, God, why did you do this to me?
I remember sitting at dinners as they pray over the food, and I'm looking around thinking, why is everybody staring at us? Over time, as they prayed for me consistently that God would change my heart, he slowly did that.
In 2012, I hit my knees and accepted Jesus my Savior. From one woman being bold and choosing life and not choosing to end a life, she has led so many to the Lord. I go to Japan, not anything big and special, end up having great, tremendous success, where schools are begging me to come in and speak.
Only problem was I wasn't allowed to talk on Christianity. I could talk about anything I wanted except for Christianity, so I obliged. I just talked about grace, and mercy, and forgiveness. And as God blessed me with more success, schools started to say, talk about whatever you want.
I got to share Jesus Christ with 900, with 1 ,000. I got to speak in places where I asked if anyone knew who Jesus Christ was, and not one person raised their hand. But by God, I promise you, when I was done speaking, they all knew who Jesus Christ were, amen.
So that's why I'm doing this now. My wife and I have been a part of Action for Life for the last few months, but before that, end abortion now was huge in our hearts, not only financially, but also going out to the mill and lending a hand whenever we could.
God tells us in Isaiah chapter 1 to protect the fatherless. That's exactly what all of you here want to do, and I thank you all for that from the bottom of my heart. You've heard the numbers being spoken, and they're staggering.
3 ,000 babies a day across this country, 66 plus million since Roe v Wade. It's an abomination, and that's what God thinks it is as well, and it's time to stop and end it. I prepared a huge speech, but I'm just gonna go off the cuff, I think, for a little bit.
We are in 13 states as of right now with legislation going out there. I'm gonna name them. Besides Arizona, we have Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Colorado, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia, and South Carolina.
That's 13 states that are ready to put legislation in in 2021. Praise God for them and their bold representatives. We also have or will have legislation in 13 more states that are trying to get on with us.
Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Maine, North Carolina, Florida. There's too many, I can't even say them all. People are starting to understand that we have to be bold.
We have to fight for the unborn. It's no longer, but it's just a fetus. That is so old and outplayed. I'm so sick of hearing it. I'm so sick of hearing it. It's time for Christian men and women to stand up and fight for what is right.
Action for Life is also working in DC right now. We are working with the sanctity of human life that it starts at conception. We all know that. We all know that fertilization is when it starts. It's time to stop playing the lie and to hold people accountable.
There's not many representatives like Walt Blackman. The man is just courage and fire. And I know he gets a little bit of that from his significant other, his love of his life, Christy. I've seen that fire and I will stand next to this man and fight with him.
I will fight next to Jeff and Luke and all the brothers that are here speaking and also all of you out there. We have to take this to their doorstep. There's no longer what Christians can sit back at home and think that the president's Republican, he's gonna end it.
He is not gonna end it. I don't care if we have the most conservative president. They are not gonna end it. It's the people. It's Christians that do the right thing that stand up for what is true and what God tells us.
This is going to be a fight. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. It's gonna be a fight. But I think Christians can fight. Before I was a believer, I thought Christians were weak. And then I got saved and I said, man, Christians are strong.
We have a God that gives us the strength and the power that we need. Now I can't follow up with Luke and all those guys and preach the gospel like they can. I can only say the truth that I know. And I'm gonna leave you with this Bible verse right here.
Proverbs 24, 10 and 11. If you do nothing in a difficult time, your strength is limited. Rescue those being taken off to death and save those stumbling towards the slaughter. God bless you guys. Keep the fight up.
We're gonna end this.
Evangelism efforts. He's been fighting for pre-born life since 2012 and leads Apology as abortion mill ministry. Zach is also a host of the podcast Provoked. The purpose of this podcast is to provoke and encourage fellow Christians to preach the gospel, rescue babies, and destroy cultural idols.
Most importantly, he has a wonderful wife, Jessica, and seven children. Please welcome Zach Morgan.
Hey guys. It's an honor to be in front of you. It's an honor. I'm just so thankful that you guys spent your money, made the plans to come out here. A lot of you go out to the mills every single day, every single week.
You're never gonna have your face in a podcast. You might not ever be up here. But you gotta understand, you're the most important people in this fight. You are. We do this together or not at all. It's not about just a bunch of talking heads that accomplishes this mission that Jesus has given us.
It's all of us doing what God has called us to do. And it's an immense honor, especially cuz my job is to be out in front of the mill, and I feel like that's where I'm the most comfortable. But guys, this isn't rocket science, what we're doing here.
It's not difficult to understand. I asked my four-year-old daughter, I have many daughters. I asked her, I said, what's one thing you would change about the world if you could? And she, without hesitation, she said this, I would stop the babies from dying.
It's simple. This state allows 30 to 40 babies to be murdered every single day, and this bill is gonna stop that from happening. It's not conceptually difficult, right? Pre-born innocent human beings are being murdered.
This bill stops it. Babies are being, think of that, torn apart in the most safest place, the wombs of their mother, every single day. It stops mothers from ingesting pills that would chemically kill their own offspring, and it stops the systematic business of child murder in this great state.
So what are we saying here? No more, no more innocent blood shed in our state. We are the ones that run this place, not them, no more. We need to defy the federal government and let the chips fall where they may.
This is an hour we have to stiffen up our spines and act the man, be courageous. We're here with grace and respect and humility, but with passion to demand that our legislators, because we pay their bills, they would accomplish some really simple actions, that they would do their duty.
Protect every one of our state's inhabitants in and out of the womb. Stop regulating the murder of babies. It's done nothing, and it will continue to do nothing. In the bloodshed of the people group in our state that needs us the most, the most helpless among us in the womb, and grant equal protection under the law to the babies in the womb.
Now, I want to congratulate and thank all the legislators that have done this, but this goes out to those who are riding the fence that will hear this. As my brother said, you have sworn an oath. You have sworn an oath to uphold the constitution and this state's constitution.
Article two, section two of our state's constitution says this, all political power is inherent in the people and governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed and are established to protect and maintain individual rights.
Article two, section four, no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Again, this is simple, the reality situation, 30, 40 babies are executed in their wombs of their mother without due process of law every single day in the state.
We're saying you must fulfill your sworn oaths. You must do what's right and do the right thing and uphold your word. But even higher than the law of the land, of course, is God's law. God's law says simply this, you shall love your neighbor.
You regulate murder, you don't love your neighbor. If we choose the road of unfaithfulness, which we will not do here, but of our state legislators and representatives choose this road of unfaithfulness and apathy and sheer cowardice and indifference.
It's just gonna compound the death and destruction that we're already seeing. Listen to some of the consequences of continued child murder. Babies will continue to be butchered and poisoned and chemically killed in our state.
The honor of men will be replaced with cowardice as they pay for their offspring to be killed. Families will be destroyed, futures destroyed, marriages destroyed, honor destroyed. Abortion will continue to bring nothing but death and pain and guilt and shame.
That's why we go out to the abortion clinic, right? We go out to these death camps. We're trying to come in between them from the death that's about to come upon their life. That's all it brings. The biggest deception that mothers and fathers believe, and I know I'm speaking to the choir here, but they believe that this killing of my own baby is gonna be somehow beneficial or advantageous.
It's the greatest deception of the enemy. That's not what it does. That comes from the very pits of hell itself. When they walk through the doors of the clinic, they walk into a door that leads to death, but there's a better way.
And Jesus says this, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the life, and no one can come to the Father but by me. On a national level, like Brother Rusty just said, it's going to continue to bring national judgment.
An absolute fact, we are a nation experienced in the judgment of God because innocent baby blood continues to be spilled. If you don't do right by these babies, legislators, then you are not doing right by your nation, your posterity, or any one of us.
Abortion brings about blood guilt, and the shedding of innocent blood is no small matter in the eyes of the Lord. Proverbs 6 says, God hates the hands that shed innocent blood. Psalm 106 says this, they poured out innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was polluted with blood.
Thus they became unclean by their acts and played the whore in their deeds. Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against his people and he abhorred his heritage. He gave them into the hand of the nations so that those who hated them would rule over them.
Sound familiar to you? We are, our land is polluted by this great injustice. We discontinue the shedding of innocent blood, or the judgment of God will continue to roll across the land. And you gotta understand, when he really lets things go, it is a fearful thing to see the judgment of God roll across a nation.
And we are staring right down those barrels. We wanna end this bloodshed because of child murder, because of the judgment of God upon this nation, for our posterity and our children. But most importantly, primarily, when these babies are killed in the womb, it dishonors our God.
It's a blight against his name, that's why we truly do this. It's because every baby created in his image is created for his glory and for his purposes, and he has the right to give life and take it away exclusively, not us.
Why do we wanna end this bloodshed? Because we love him, we wanna glorify him, we wanna live according to his law. The wicked assault against our most precious citizens has to stop. So legislators, lastly, do your duty, stop regulating murder, do the right thing, and keep your word, fulfill your oaths.
Do right by the unborn, and listen, the judge of the earth will do right. And every baby that has been unjustly slaughtered, they will have their day in the court.
He's a 22-year veteran of professional conservative politics. He led the successful effort to pass constitutional carry in 14 states, has won numerous battles in Congress against new federal restrictions, and helped build a 4 .5 million member grassroots organization from the ground up.
Zach is the past Vice President of the National Association for Gun Rights, and currently serves as the Vice President of Action for Life. He and his wife, Amy, reside in northern Utah with their seven children.
Please welcome Zach Lautenschlager.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
When we think about those words, we picture men and women who are on a trajectory towards freedom, towards victory. But those 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, as they signed it over the summer of 1776, did not have that perspective.
How do I know that? Because my grandfather was one of them. Mr. John Hart, one of the oldest men to sign the Declaration of Independence, went home to his wife, who was ailing, and it turned out on her deathbed.
He sat by her side as the British marched into his town, marched up his driveway, and entered his house. And in my family, the legend is that he slipped out the back door just after his wife left this earth as the British soldiers came in the front.
He lived outside for a year. He was separated from his 13 children, and we don't know how many of them he saw. Because just a few months later, an old man broken in health, he left this earth. There are multiple other signers who were harassed, arrested, tortured, imprisoned.
Why did they do this? Well, as men picked up their banner and carried on, they wrote it in the Constitution. And you understand that the Declaration of Independence is, in a sense, the Articles of Incorporation.
That's what describes what this nation is. The Constitution is the bylaws. That's how it will operate. And in the Constitution, in the preamble, they said to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.
And our posterity. Now, whether or not you happen to have had ancestors here at the time, that is you. And it is the children who are right now yet to be unborn, including my little daughter, who by God's grace will be born in March, number seven.
Praise God. So as we look ahead at the difficulties, you know what? It's gonna take some time. What is today? The 48th anniversary of the handing down of the Roe versus Wade decision. The leftists are all over the media today talking about Roe v Wade passing today.
Sorry you don't pass a court decision. I'm sorry it's not law. In fact, your side, leftists, has acknowledged that it's not law. We have our work cut out for us. It's gonna be tough. Yes, we're working in 13 states.
Yes, we have 13 more that appear to be interested. Yes, the tide may be turning. Let us pray that God is giving us the opportunity in our generation to stand up with our founding fathers and say the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the core of our nation.
That's what it's about. And we will stand up and make it law. That is what it will be. But we do not know how difficult it will be. Praise God that we are able to participate in our system of public policy and law without facing armed soldiers, at least not yet.
We can do it. We can show up here at the Capitol and exercise. We call it a First Amendment right. Why? Because they wrote it, because they put it in a document. That's why we call it that. Doesn't come from that document.
Comes from God, but it is secured by our Constitution. So what if it takes us years? How did we get here? Well, we're counting 48. Is it enough just to march? What's that? Is it enough just to march? Is it enough to be happy with a small political victory that actually saves no babies and protects no one, doesn't actually change anything?
It's just a token. Is that okay? How about enforcing current law? Maybe that's enough, and I think I agree. That's a good start. We do have current law in over 11 states stating that abortion is illegal, recognizing that it is murder.
Is it the proper penalties? Probably not. So is it enough in and of itself? No, it is not. How do you change the law? Well, my friends and my compatriots like to joke about that I was genetically predisposed to work in American politics.
I kind of am. It's in my blood. My children are too, and they are passionate about it. If you ask them, what does the rattlesnake say? They will snap to attention and say, don't tread on me. You'll see some yellow shirts here.
Don't tread on the unborn, because without life, there is no liberty. Sir William Blackstone, the man who put down in five documents the core of the common law. You understand that the British Constitution is not in one place.
It's 1 ,000 years of common law, starting at Runnymede. It was Sir William Blackstone who put it down in one document. And if you look at what our founding fathers said about, especially Jefferson, when he was asked, how did you write the declaration?
He said, well, it was neither a new work, nor was it completely my own, nor was it a copy of anything. And that's a paraphrase. But they referenced Blackstone. If you look at Sir William Blackstone in chapter one, he says, every man has the right to the pursuit of happiness, and no man is so happy as when he is serving God.
That's the British common law. That's where it comes from. That is the standard for our nation. That is the standard for our law. Do you ever regret the time that you were born in? Do you ever look back in time and say, I kind of wish I'd been born in the golden age of America, whenever that was?
I don't know when that is. I don't think it exists. You know what? I can't tell you how excited I am to be born in this time. Some of you are discouraged about the outcome of a national election recently.
You know what I have to say? Good. Stop focusing on the federal government so much. Some of you are worried about elections. I say, why are you not involved in your county auditor election? It's who counts the votes.
And you've been obsessing about the president. Stop it. You're worried about what's going to happen in Congress? Well, here's the reality. We're better off than we were when Obama got elected. We have much better margins in both houses.
So stop freaking out. And focus on what you need to do. State and local elections is where it is at. So what time were we born in? A time when we get to stand shoulder to shoulder with our founding fathers, with men like Thomas Jefferson, John Hart, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, and say we believe in the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
And our laws will reflect it. Thank you for coming.
Dr. James White is a pastor at Apologia Church and the director of Alpha Omega Ministries, a Christian apologetics organization based in Arizona. He is the author of more than 20 books and is a professor having taught Greek, church history, and various topics in the field of apologetics for numerous schools.
Dr. James White has engaged in over 170 moderated debates across the globe. He has been married for nearly four decades to his lovely wife, Kelly. He has two children and four grandchildren. Please welcome Dr. James White.
I don't know how many of you might be old enough or have lived in Arizona long enough to remember hearing this. I hope you can hear it. If not, I'll repeat it, but we're going to try to play this. How many of you remember this?
Blessed is a nation whose God is the Lord. K-O-O-L-T-V, Channel 10, Phoenix. Remember that?
When we moved here from Pennsylvania long, long ago, we didn't have the Internet. Some of you are sitting there going, oh my. We did not have cable television. We had something called broadcast television, which you listened to as the dinosaurs walked by outside.
And on the hour, Channel 10 taught most Arizonans the first half of Psalm 33, 12. Blessed is a nation whose God is the Lord. The scriptures tell us that all peoples, all nations, all states have a God.
They have a God. For example, 1 Chronicles 16 says, For great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised. He also is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols, but Yahweh made the heavens.
Now why would I bring this up as we stand here calling our state to end the slaughter of innocents in our midst? Arizona has more people living within its borders and more square miles of land than most European nations did up until the modern era.
We are truly a people answerable to God for the laws that we institute within our borders. And so I have a question for you today. What kind of a God does Arizona have? Do we have the hideous gods of the nations that led their people to offer their children the fruit of their bodies upon altars of sacrifice?
Is sexual freedom our God? Intercourse and pleasure without meaning and without covenant? Will we worship stardust, random fluctuations of energy, doomed someday to die in the great heat death without meaning, without purpose, just here briefly to feel good and use others for our own benefit?
Is that the God of Arizona? God made us in His image. Our entire nation once knew this, believed this, made our laws based upon this. When our founders spoke of rights, they founded them not in the state.
They derived them not from the state, but in the God who grants them to His creatures. God has granted to us more knowledge about the humanity of the pre-born child than ever in history. We can literally see inside the womb and watch the miracle of development take place.
We are just scratching the surface of understanding the incredible complexity of fetal development that remains so far beyond our limited capacities and abilities. Truly, we are fearfully and wonderfully made for this reason, my friends.
We have the least excuse of any generation to be murdering and slaughtering the children of the womb. There is no excuse. We do it for pleasure. We do it for selfishness. We do it because we have become so debased by secularism, we think our right to an orgasm is more important than the unique special creature created in the act.
Ancient men also engaged in the evil of abortion, but our generation does it with our eyes wide open, and not a word of excuse could possibly be offered. So what will it be, Arizona? Blessed is the nation.
Blessed is the state. Blessed is the people whose God is the Lord. Do we desire God's blessing rather than his wrath? Will we stop suppressing the knowledge he has given us long enough to act in its light and do the right thing?
We must abolish human abortion in the state of Arizona. I want to call upon God to forgive us of the blood that has already been shed and stand united to call the rest of our nation to repentance as well.
Let us end this scourge before it ends us. God bless you.
Jeff Durbin is a planting and lead teaching pastor at Apologia Church. Jeff is the creator of Apologia Radio and Apologia Studios and the head of End Abortion Now, all of which reach millions of people around the globe every year.
End Abortion Now has raised up hundreds of churches which have saved thousands of children from death and is working on abolishing abortion in our world. Jeff lives in Arizona with his wife Candy and has five children and three grandchildren.
Please welcome Jeff Durbin.
Thank you for standing out here so long. Praise God for this. Amen? Amen! That was my father in the faith right there. Isn't he awesome? He taught me well. And I don't know how to follow that. So, I want to speak to you all just about a few things.
I've been here for a while. Just in terms of background to give you some inspiration where we started. I say this often, we're not special. I know you expect Christians to say those sort of things. We know that God gets all the glory.
That he's a sovereign and he rules all things through his decree and his providence. But we truly are not special as a church. We are a gathering of believers. We love Jesus. We want to love our neighbors.
We want to honor and glorify God. So, years ago, we were a small church referred to in Arizona as that drug church. Because I was a chaplain at a drug rehab, a hospital locally. And we planted Apologio Church out of a drug rehab.
In the family building with people who were still on detoxification medication. People who were in halfway houses whose lives were completely destroyed. We had very humble beginnings. And people were really grateful for our online teaching ministry.
When they would come and visit Apologio Church, they would say, probably not going to be back. Just a bunch of drug addicts, tatted up faces. Walking through a cloud of cigarette smoke as you walk through the door.
People were being sanctified. By the way, you're welcome to come. It doesn't look like that anymore. We've got families and babies because that's what tends to happen. People come to love Jesus. They get married.
They have children. And now we're, I think, called that kid church. Because there's children everywhere. So, praise God, we're going on our 11th year anniversary. But years ago, a small church of a bunch of rebels were hit right in the heart with some messages that came from believers who were involved in this work.
Heroes who were involved in this work long before we were. And we were deeply impacted by the film Babies Are Murdered Here. And specifically the message in that film from Rusty Thomas. So we didn't know what to do.
We weren't any good at this. We really didn't understand what do you do. We just knew that that's where they're killing human beings in the womb. We have the message of the gospel and the message of life.
We're going to go and love those mothers and fathers. We're going to tell them there's hope in Christ. And we're going to offer anything that they need. Now, honestly, we didn't have it. We offered to pay for everything.
And we knew that if the time came where we could save a child, we would ask Christians globally for help so we could provide the need. We just knew that God was going to provide. We went out there to offer to adopt their children.
We were a small band of believers who didn't have any resources, not a huge, huge platform. We were just Christians who loved these mothers and fathers and these babies. And we knew that we knew Jesus and they needed to know him too.
So our very first day we went to Planned Parenthood not far from here. Our first day we were out there for maybe an hour or two. And after going out there with just this message, please don't murder your child today.
This is the message of the gospel. Here is the hope in Christ. There is forgiveness in Jesus. We will help you. We will even adopt your child. That's all we said, three things, three points of contact.
We had nothing special about ourselves. We saved two babies from death that day. And so we started talking about it. We had a radio show that was going global and very popular. And so we would just talk about it.
We'd say, hey, by the way, we saved two children this Saturday. Or, hey, we saved three children this Saturday. Or, hey, I held Carmelo in my arms today. Carmelo is the baby we saved from Planned Parenthood in Glendale.
The mother brought him after he was born to our church and he was passed around our church through all the members who were there that day to save his life. That will change you, by the way. That will put flesh on this for you.
This is not theory, hypothetical. This is flesh and blood. These are real human beings. And when you put one of these babies saved from death in your arms, brothers and sisters, it'll change you. It'll change you for good.
And it changed us. So we got even more aggressive as believers, bring the gospel to every murder mill we can. And we would just start saving children. We'd announce it on Apology Radio, we saved another baby today.
So churches started saying, how are you doing that? We'd say, I don't know. We go to preach the gospel. But what else? We go to preach the gospel. But what else? Don't murder your child. Jesus is the Savior.
We'll help you. And churches started going. And babies started being saved. You started getting notifications. We saved babies. We saved babies. We're saying, praise God. And then we realized we can help the church.
We can encourage the church. Let's find a way to not be a burden to any church, to give everything away for free, and to work into two lanes we need to. One, let's stop the killing where it's taking place.
Let's go save children from death. And let's raise churches up to do exactly that thing. And two, we need to speak prophetically to our legislators with the message of God's word in the gospel and demand justice for the pre-born children.
We need to stop all of what's being funneled into the abortion facility. So two lanes. God blessed us to be able to do that and not be a burden to a single church as we did it. And we've raised up over 600 local churches globally.
Last year, through the efforts, not of Apologia Church, but these Christian churches, we know of at least 3 ,000 babies who were saved last year from death. And that was during COVID. Everything else was shut down, but the abortion facilities were still open and Christians sacrificed everything to go there to preach the gospel anyway.
We raised up over 600 churches and more are coming all the time. Thousands of children are being saved from death. And we want to speak to this issue in terms of the legislative aspect. I know you've been standing for a long time.
Please hear me on this. This is one of the most essential issues I think we need to grapple with as evangelicals, as Christians in the West today. God's concern with justice. We, as Christians, have an understanding from God's word, certain revelation from God, guaranteed that our God is immutable.
It's a big fancy word that just means this. He does not change. And in God's revelation from beginning to end, God makes it abundantly clear. God is concerned with justice. He is concerned with justice.
There's no end to the list of verses that describe God's heart for justice in a culture and a society. And I want to say this. If you believe in Jesus Christ and His righteous life and His death for sinners, if you believe that that was for you, then the cross of Jesus Christ is the premier, supreme example of God's concern for justice.
God is so concerned with justice with respect to you as a believer that He would not neglect His justice for your sin. He didn't forget it. He didn't abandon it. He gave it to Jesus Christ because God demands justice.
The cross of Jesus Christ is God's exclamation to the world that He is a God of justice and He will not simply let sin and injustice go. He will establish justice. He does that premierly in His Son on the cross.
And then the promise of Scripture in Isaiah chapter 42 is that this righteous Messiah, this righteous one, He will establish justice in the world. He will not grow faint or weary until He has done so and the coastlands are waiting for His law.
How does the Son of Man, the promised Messiah, the righteous one, establish justice in the earth today? How? Number one, He satisfied the justice of the Father in place of His people. All who come to Him in repentance and faith receive the gift of eternal life, forgiveness, and the freedom from condemnation for all eternity.
That is the gift through faith in Jesus. And He establishes, here it is, justice in the world today as the Son of Man, through His bride, His help meets. We bring the message of His justice into the world.
And one of the things the Christian church has neglected today, in this generation and the last, is God's concern for justice. You know, we talk a lot today about the founding of this nation. Understand this, the founding of this nation was what it was because of the Christian worldview.
Those people who held to an essentially Christian worldview had a belief about law and order and justice and liberty that did not come, please hear this, from atheism. It didn't come from secularism. They had an understanding about the value of human beings and God's concern for liberty and justice for all because they had this revelation, this revelation from God.
And those believers then understood God's concern for justice. Did you know that when this nation was starting and this experiment was beginning, that in the colonies they pointed explicitly to the word of the living God as they were creating law and codes for justice in their society.
Our first Supreme Court justice, John Jay, quoted explicitly from the Mosaic legislation as he was creating our case law system, which, by the way, comes from scripture. Our nation was founded on these things and evangelicals in the West today have forgotten about God's concern for justice.
But the question is, we need to ask this, where is justice? What is justice? And to this we must answer, there is no neutrality, brothers and sisters. There is no neutrality and if there hasn't been a time before this day that you understood that, I hope you understand it now.
People today that are propagating their worldview at the highest levels of government are showing you that they are not neutral. They have a view of reality. They have a view of ethics and law and how we should live our lives that is contradictory to God's word and even the foundation of this nation.
It's time for us to stop pretending neutrality and I want to just say this, please hear this because this is the foundation of this fight. Neutrality is a myth and neutrality is a sin. Jesus said, if you are not with me, you are against me.
Please hear me on this. This bill, our concern for this bill and the issue of justice surrounding it is not about left or right. It's not about Republican or Democrat. This is not about America. We are a movement of the Christian church.
There is no king but Christ. Our goal, let me go ahead and state it so that everyone understands it clearly. Our goal is to preach the gospel, win the nations and teach them to obey Jesus. So if you're asking, if we're trying to Christianize the world, my answer is, I said this on Sunday, very rigorous, very erudite Christian answer.
Duh! Of course we are. Are we saying that God's word is the foundation for justice for all of society? Yes. And as Pastor James said, blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. We are trying to point people to the Savior, the true Savior, the only Savior, Christ.
Here is what we need to understand. Number one, in terms of our foundation and our argument. Number one, all human beings are made in God's image and therefore are distinct and they are valuable and they are worthy of protection.
We do not hold to a humanistic, secular or atheist perspective that says that human beings are nothing more than cosmic accidents. It makes sense to me that people today who are trained in our educational system, who are trained that they're nothing more than cosmic broccoli, would believe that killing a child is just an irrelevant thing.
But from the Christian perspective, lives matter. Because human beings are made in God's image. It is an irrefutable biblical fact that human beings are in the image of God and God, number two, says, you shall not murder.
What is murder? It is the unjustified killing of a human being with malice aforethought. The unjustified killing of a human being with malice aforethought. Abortion is the unjustified killing of a human being with malice aforethought.
Therefore, abortion is murder. Abortion is murder and we need to say it is. I was doing an interview over here with someone that I don't think liked me very much and what I had to say, and let me just say to you right now, there was no coherent response from that reporter in terms of the response to these questions and these challenges.
What's in the womb, third point, is human. I said it at the beginning of this rally, we're wrapping it up here, but understand this. Please hear me on this. The pro-life industry has failed in terms of its pursuit to end abortion.
They refuse to call it what it is, murder. They refuse to work towards criminalization, ending it by law and by penalty, which is the only way ultimately to protect these children, by law. And they refuse to fight this fight the way that they ought to, standing on scripture.
They say out loud and proud that many of these pro-life industries are not Christian organizations. They explicitly say, we're not Christian. Brothers and sisters, that's not us. We yield to and submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
Our foundation is scripture, and therefore we also have science on our side. But the pro-life industry has argued for regulation. Well, let's just say it's a victory. By the way, did you hear this recently?
Did you guys hear one of the victories that the pro-life industry was celebrating is that we had a victory? Well, what was the victory? Please tell us. Did we end abortion? Well, no. Now if people have abortions, what they have to do is give that child a burial.
The pro-life industry calls that kind of regulation a victory. That's what Christians have been giving their money to, thinking that this industry is trying to end abortion. It's time that we peel back our eyelids and understand that if you're not standing on the word of God and submitted to the Lordship of Christ, you're not fighting this consistently.
And pro-life should be ours. Abolition is pro-life. Criminalization is pro-life. This is truly pro-life. It is not pro-some life. When we say we had a victory bill that you can't kill children under 24 weeks any longer in our state, praise God, hallelujah, what's that mean?
Babies are still being slaughtered in our state. And we need to stop the regulation of abortion. We do not call that a victory. It will be victorious when human beings are protected from the moment of conception.
All humans. All biological science says that we're human from conception. The only difference, again, is the size of the human, the level of development, the environment, and the degree of dependence.
We don't kill humans because they're small. Otherwise, some of y 'all would be in trouble. Level of development. They say, well, it's not a fully developed human. What I say to that is, interesting. Thank you for turning the clock back on public morality.
They said that about blacks and Jews. Congratulations. It's not totally human. It's not a fully developed human. Or they would say, it's a parasite. By the way, that's exactly what some of the pro-choicers and pro-aborts say about babies, is it's a parasite.
Congratulations, again, on turning the clock back. On public morality. They say, well, we can kill it because of the environment. I know it's human. We can kill it in the environment. We go in and out of different environments our whole lives.
That's no basis to kill human beings. And they say it's dependent upon the mother. Therefore, we can kill human beings. This is one of the most ignorant arguments I've ever heard. Have you ever seen an eight-month-old breastfeeding, fully dependent upon its mother?
I ask the question, what do we do to mothers who decapitate, disembowel, and dismember their babies who are eight months old, who are dependent upon them? We put them in jail. We call it a crime. We cannot kill human beings because they're dependent upon other human beings.
We go in and out of dependence upon other human beings our entire lives. We are human from conception. And what we are saying with this, speaking prophetically to our legislators, is that we want equal protection.
We want all human beings protected from conception. I want to read to everybody, in terms of that discussion, about regulation. These bills that go forth that regulate the murder of children. Hear this.
God's word is so clear on all these things. Isaiah chapter 10. Please hear this. God says, verse 1, Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and the writers who keep writing oppression to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their right that widows may be their spoil and that they make the fatherless their prey.
These children in the womb are, by definition, fatherless children. They've been abandoned by their fathers. These children deserve protection. And what God says to people who write iniquitous decrees that lead to fatherless children being their prey, God says, woe to you.
Woe to you. When you make the fatherless your prey. These regulations surrounding abortion make these fatherless children prey. And God says, woe to you. I want to point you to one section of Scripture and then give you some hope and then we're done.
This is one of the most challenging portions of Scripture that I have honestly ever read. One of the most challenging. I've poured over this passage of Scripture many, many times. It's cut me. It's challenged me.
It's brought me to my knees, literally. And I hope it challenges you. Isaiah chapter 1, God is speaking to His people here. And you have to hear this and grapple with this truth. God is speaking to people here who are very religious.
They're doing the worship and the ritual. They look Christian. They're saying the right things. They're affirming their allegiance to the God of the Bible. And here's what God says to those people who look outwardly like they're believers, like they're following Yahweh, the true God.
He says in verse 10 of chapter 1 of Isaiah, hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. Now, if you don't understand this, if you're new to the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah, not so good.
And what God is saying to His covenant people, listen to me, Sodom and Gomorrah. He says, what to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord? I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts.
I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats. When you come before me, who is required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings, incenses and abomination to me, new moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations.
I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates. They have become a burden to me. I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you.
Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean. Remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes. So here is God calling to His people, His covenant people, who are acting very religious, they have the right confession of faith.
They would have passed the theological exam if anybody would have asked, is that a Christian? Is that a covenant person? Is that a person who knows God? Yeah, I think that person. They say they are. They look like it.
They're going to church. They're doing all of the rituals. They're doing the worship. They attend all those things. God says, stop giving it to me. I'm not going to listen to your prayers. Stop all this iniquity and gathering and solemn assembly, pretending like all is well.
Your hands are full of blood. God tells His people, as long as there is this sin and this blood guiltiness and this injustice, He does not want their worship. And so His response to them is this. Here's the hope.
He says, cease to do evil. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause. Now, you know, here's the amazing thing. As Christians, we've seen all these when they used to be Christian bookstores, paintings with this verse on it.
Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Same chapter. Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they should be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.
That famous section of Scripture that talks about God's forgiveness is on the heels of God condemning His people for gathering and acting like all is well while they sit in so much injustice and blood guiltiness.
And He tells them, seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. There is forgiveness only in Jesus Christ. Our nation needs Christ, and they need His forgiveness, not just from the sin of abortion.
It is our pride, our jealousy, our hatred, our lusts, our adultery, our murder, our hate, our covetousness. We need forgiveness from all of our sins. But, brothers and sisters, when we look at a passage like this and we think about where our nation is and where we individually are, we have to consider that God's call is to come to Him for life and forgiveness and peace, and that is only through what the Messiah has accomplished.
But then He tells His people to correct oppression and to seek justice and to bring justice to the fatherless. We have to be courageous enough to actually follow Jesus into that great call. Greater love has no man than this, than a man lay down his life for his friends.
Jesus says, first, love God, second, love your neighbor. If we allow innocent image-bearers of God to continue to be slaughtered by their parents in this state, brothers and sisters, stop lying, stop pretending, stop offering your sacrifices, because you are not loving your neighbor.
I admit this fight is costly. I admit that. It is costly. When you go to the abortion mill, many of you guys are giants, heroes, truly. There's people here who are giants. People here who have been beat up, knocked out flat, cold on the concrete, arrested, for standing for pre-born children outside of abortion mills.
Rusty has been arrested, I think, near 50 or 60 times. This is costly. You will be vilified. You will be hated. You may get canceled on social media. You may, listen, you may lose your job. I said something to my people at Apologia Church when we started this ministry.
I said, if we do this every single day for the rest of our lives, and we save one, it is worth your whole life. And God has saved thousands. Thousands. I am calling us as God's people, and I'm speaking as much to myself as I am to you, to be consistent with your profession of faith.
If you trust in Christ, you've come to die. So live like a person who will never die again. Live like you will never die. Jesus says, when you come to Him and believe in Him, you will never die. So live as those who have no fear of death, and live as those who have been redeemed from sin themselves, who know the true and living God.
Go preach the gospel. Go call abortion what it truly is, and go lay down your lives for these children. It is worth it. It is worth your whole life. My son that I had recently adopted, his life was in danger from abortion two times.
His mother was going to take him to an abortion mill the first time she found out that she was pregnant with him. And then when she found out that he had the worst stage of spina bifida, she said, nobody's going to want him.
I have to do it. And a Christian sister said, no. You're going to live with me. I'm going to pay for everything. You're going to have no cost whatsoever. I will do everything. We're going to find a Christian family that will take him.
12 ,000 children in this state are murdered every single year. A bunch of little boys like Augustine are killed every day. A bunch of little girls are killed every single day. You must establish justice.
Fight for their lives. It's worth your whole life. And brothers and sisters that are here from other states right now, you're from other states. You're seeing what God established here. You're like, I don't know how that's going to be done.
Not by power nor by might, but by God's spirit. I've been praying for Walt Blackman for four years, three or four years. And then mysteriously, weirdly, out of nowhere, I'm finding out we're having lunch with him at some restaurant.
God gave us his ear. And we went, and we went there loving him and being humble, and we just spoke to him with God's word. And halfway through the meeting, he looks at me and he says, you're right, it's murder.
We're going to end it. That's the work of God, and that is through no compromise. Tell the truth. Brothers and sisters from other states, you go home and you pray and you fight. You save lives and you go talk to your legislators.
You bring God's word to them. You preach the gospel to them. And you demand that they follow what Psalm 2 says. And this is my final word. You know I have sins in the area of time. Psalm 2, about Jesus, it says this.
The father says to Jesus, ask of me, I'll give you the nations for your inheritance, the very ends of the earth for your possession. Did Jesus forget to ask? And then the father says to the kings of the earth, the rulers, he says, obey the son or you'll perish.
Go tell that to your legislators. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for what you're doing for this move of your spirit, God. I pray for every single person that are hearing my voice. For those here and those who are watching around the world right now, I pray that you would challenge your church to first repent of our indifference, of our apathy.
You grant us repentance as a church to seek first your kingdom and your righteousness and to, Lord, to love our neighbors in a way that is consistent with what you call us to. I pray, Lord, for your church, that you would put your gospel on our lips, that you would, Lord, grant to us humility and boldness, that you give us strength to suffer well, that you give us strength to serve you, to bring glory to your name.
God, we ask not for our sake, but for your sake and your glory that you would bring justice for the fatherless, for the preborn, and you would do it for your namesake and for your glory, not for our glory, not for our namesake, but for your glory.
Let us be forgotten in history. In the name of Jesus Christ, exalted and remembered forevermore. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, everybody, for coming. God bless you.
Before you all left, I wanted to say a few words and thank you for coming out. I brought my bride here because I want her to share a story about our family really quick. And I know we're between you and that hamburger.
So we will be brief, but I would like her to share this.
So I think that the biggest travesty for women and mothers is when our own government lies to them and tells them that abortion is not murder and that's not a child and convinces them of that. And I feel like they are accomplice to murder.
Women know, you know when you're pregnant that that's a person, that that's a human, and that it's your child. When I was very young, I had one child out of wedlock. And I lived in a very predominantly strict Christian community and I felt like I didn't want to have this scarlet letter on my chest.
And I found out I was pregnant with my second child. I was engaged to be married and my fiance just left me. And so I went to a place called Living Hope Centers and took a pregnancy test. And on my way out the door, a woman named Dinah Monahan said to me, I can tell that you're abortion minded.
And the only thing I can have you do is tell you just please look at the ultrasound. Please just look at the ultrasound. And I was abortion minded and I took my whole paycheck and I came to a little house.
It was down here in Phoenix. It was an old house. And when I walked in, there was, I remember red shag carpet and just rows of women sitting in folding chairs. And when I went in to do the ultrasound, they were doing the abortions in one room and the ultrasounds in another.
I said to the woman, can I look at the ultrasound? And she said, we strongly discourage it. And I said, no, I want to see it. And just then, when I looked at the ultrasound, I saw this little head and I watched his thumb move to his mouth.
And I got up and I walked out. I think about it all the time. My son, Britton, he is amazing. Of all my children, he looks out for his brothers and sisters. He's the greatest. He always tells me, don't worry, Mom, I'd have got the abortion doctor.
I'm tough. But I want you guys to know that I think that when I look back on it, the worst thing that would have happened to me is if I had gone through with it, because I would have always known in my heart that it was murder.
And I would have believed the lie. So we need to change this culture. Yes, we need to hold these women accountable for murdering their babies. But they need to stop telling them that it is not murder and convincing them.
I cannot tell you the tremendous pressure that they put on women. It's not murder. It's a clump of cells. You're going to be better off. You're going to be poor. You're going to struggle. It's going to be painful if you put it up for adoption.
These are the things. It's the big lie, and it is an accomplice to murder. So I want you to remember that. That, yes, these women are killing their babies, but our society, sadly, is telling them to do it and that that's what's best.
And I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Isn't she amazing? And you wonder how I won? Right there, that's an Army wife for you, I tell you. Really quickly, they were talking about the Constitution and they were talking about when they came up to Snowflake to talk to me about this abortion bill.
To me, it was a no-brainer. And if you've been in the military, first of all, let's give a hand to our veterans that are out there. So if you've been in the military when somebody gives you a task and you just say, oh, that's a no-brainer.
When do you want me to go do it? I'll go to lunch after I do it, though. You go do it. You execute it. I'm going to read you something, an oath that I took not in these buildings, because the oath that I took over 21 years ago said that when I retired, my oath never ended.
So I'm going to read it to you. Please forgive the eyes again. I should know this by heart. The oath of enlistment for a United States soldier. I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers above me.
And I will do this in accordance of the regulations of the code of military justice. That is the oath that I keep. Simply because I retired, thank you, simply because I retired does not mean that oath ends.
When I deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, I took an oath then. I took an oath to protect the people in this country. It didn't stop. That's why it's a no-brainer to me. I've been shot at, blown up, away from my family for years at a time.
So unless they can do that to me, this is a no-brainer to do. By trade, I'm a tank commander. Tank commanders are hard-headed. We keep going. You can say, there's a wall. Driver, run over that wall.
You can say, they're shooting at you. Gunner, load sabot. That's a heat rail. Then they can say, you know, you're wrong what you're doing. You're not giving them a choice. Yeah, I am giving you a choice.
I'm giving you a choice to stop murdering your baby or face the consequences. Abraham Lincoln said, I am not concerned that you have fallen. I am concerned that you arise. This message is for you. You are the true heroes.
You are the true war fighters. You are the true saints that have set out to protect God's children. Alive and in the womb. You are the ones that will go to battle. And I will be there with you as I was with my comrades in Fallujah, Baghdad, and Bokooba.
This is a spiritual fight. But what they don't know is that I'm a war fighter too. When we were standing here, there was a little boy. Came up in a wheelchair. Candace is the mother, and the boy was in the wheelchair.
A little black American kid. And I started thinking about the black community. Over 3 ,000 babies are aborted every day. In the black community, between 900 and 1 ,000 are aborted every single day. 900 or 1 ,000.
In a week, that is more of the combat losses in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And as I looked at this little guy, and his smile, and the opportunity that he has for life, that reaffirmed my belief that we are in the fight of our lives and we are going to save lives.
Our family appreciates every single one of you. We will not, we will not compromise. We will not back down. We will not go quietly in the night. We will stand for life and we will stand for what is right.
And we will be in the trenches fighting with you. God bless you.
Turn on the mic, just one minute. Is it on? Okay, brothers and sisters, really quickly. If you are here with OSA and you're a part of this crowd, I just want you to know we're having our afternoon session at 2 .30 at the Gathering Place.
We got Love Life from North Carolina going to be addressing that session. We have a rally session tonight at 6 .30 at the Gathering Place. On Saturday, we'll have an afternoon session there. And then the evening session on Saturday night, the Apologia Gang is going to show up.
Amen? So you're invited to come to the sessions in the afternoon, in the evening. It's the Gathering Place and it's in Phoenix on North 6th Street. God bless you and thank you for coming.