A Story of a Verifiable Miracle

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Free men need to be able to protect their families. It's really sad to see people hurt, livelihoods destroyed, even homes destroyed, just to make a political point.

00:13

Free men take action when churches face heartbreaking attacks. And while cowards stand idle, free men run towards the sound of gunshots when children are in danger.

00:23

I'm so thankful for free men who stand ready with the tools of liberty. Non -rockabotists must stop.

00:36

I don't want to rock the boat, I want to sink it! Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite?

00:45

Delusional. Delusional is okay in your world view. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional.

00:52

You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your world view is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt.

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Is he hung up on me? Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men.

01:11

The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.

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Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Don't go into the world and make homies.

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Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, pastor.

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When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.

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Take an amazing journey so you will never be the same.

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Proverbs chapter 3, verse 27. Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it.

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Do not say to your neighbor, go and come again. Tomorrow I will give it to you when you have it with you.

02:20

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of Apologia Radio. This is the gospel heard around the world.

02:25

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03:55

So that is What's Up With That. Hey, there is some crazy... By the way, that's Luke the

04:00

Bear. Hi. I'm surprised you didn't have a version of that song that said it's all about Christ's true vanity.

04:07

Yes. We can do this. It's possible. Just saying. We have technology. Also no

04:12

Christmas dubstep. That's what I'm saying. It's so stupidly crazy right now.

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You play just five seconds of something. Just gotta look up royalty free.

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There's all kinds of stuff. I'll find that in this show. We'll play some. Let's just stop. We'll restart the frame.

04:34

I'm really disappointed in your lack of Christmas spirit. I am exhausted today.

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My wife, my daughter, my son, and myself are exhausted. I feel like we're hungover. That's Joy the Girl, by the way. You should clarify that statement before someone misuses it.

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We're hungover. Not really hungover. We feel exhausted. Last night, my daughter, Saylor, comes in. She's like, hey, let's watch this movie.

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It's incredible. It's 11 .30. I'm like, do you know how old your parents are? I have to get up and do things.

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She's like, please, let's just do it. My wife's like, Jeff, let's watch the movie. It's Christmas time.

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That's my wife's play. She'll be like, it's Christmas time. You have to give a little more. She uses that.

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It's 11 .30. I'm like, all right, let's get started. I'm thinking to myself, I'm going to watch half an hour and go to bed. That's all

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I'm going to do. 11 .30? Yeah, PM. I'm like, okay, fine.

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She puts it on. It's the number one movie right now in the nation, I think, on Netflix. It's not a new movie.

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It's from 2013. She said, it's absolutely incredible. You've never seen anything like this.

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It's done so well. At 1 .30 in the morning, we're going to bed. We're going to go home.

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Then I came back out and stood in the hallway and stared at the TV, seeing what's going to happen next. The movie is called

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Prisoner. It's on Netflix. It's got Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal.

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Did I say it? Is it Gyllenhaal? I think it's Gyllenhaal. It's about these two girls that get kidnapped.

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I'll leave it there. It is phenomenal. It's just been slept on.

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It's been slept on. It's the best movie in the country. Liam Neeson wasn't in this one?

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No, not in this one. What's that movie called again he did? What's it called? It's Taken Five.

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Now we have his dog. That's his genre right there. They got her again. At some point, he needs to stop working on his retrieval skills.

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It's more about keeping the child. You need to look at your environment and see where there are gaps. I'm really good at finding her when she's lost, but not really good at keeping her.

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Is he an Irish retriever? Recently, he was in a Netflix original about the

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Ice Road truckers. It was hilarious. If you want to laugh and just enjoy yourself.

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He was in Derry Girls actually this season. We're way off track here. I got Trappy Christmas.

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I got Winter Lo -Fi. I got Christmas Trap Mix. Here's the problem. I've been tricked before.

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They tell you in the thing, they say this is royalty free. You click it, you use it, and then they come and hit you up on your thing.

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You're like, you used my music. I want the royalties. I'm like, you guys are lying. I'm afraid to do it.

07:23

Welcome everybody. We have a lot to talk about today. Very cool episode we have planned for you guys today.

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I'm going to tell you about a truly bonafide miracle that took place in our community's life.

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Specifically in my family's life with Augustine and God healing him of Spina Bifida. We're going to talk about that. I'm going to share some videos that we've never shared before.

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I don't think publicly. I'm going to share some stuff, talk about his story, and that's going to lead into a really important discussion.

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I hope this blesses you today. We're going to be talking about a lot of really cool things related to this issue of the slaughter of children,

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Christians standing in the way, and a miracle, a real genuine miracle. I'm going to share some videos from the hospital with all of you from what happened that day that we discovered that God had completely healed him.

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But we also want to interact with some stuff happening right now in the world.

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We have Students for Life doing something just terrible. Can we start with this? Do you have something to do before we jump into the show today?

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I just want to thank New St. Andrews. Okay, New St. Andrews. Because they're awesome. NSA .edu.

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We should have already played the other videos. New St.

08:41

Andrews. And you'll love Moscow. It's an amazing place. So if your kids are going to college, get them that education at NSA .edu.

08:49

It's the bomb. Yeah, their first year, they have a traditional thing where everyone takes a picture with the stack of books that they have to read in their first year, and it's taller than a lot of them.

09:03

It is not easy. This place is the Can't Get Right studio right now.

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It's wintertime here in Arizona. I'm golden. It's been a pretty cold winter so far.

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But this side of the studio that we have, we've never been able to get the heat turned on because there's just issues. We have heat in spots of the studio.

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We have two sides. We have a room with heater, and then another room with heater, and then the guys in the back like to steal all the space heaters and not share them with anybody.

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It's like a portal to hell in that room. When we threw up, it was so hot.

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I was saying yesterday that I came in there, I was on this side, I was freezing, working, preparing a sermon, and I come over and I'm like, do we have any more space heaters?

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They're cooking in that room, and they just go, you should probably buy some. I'm thinking to myself, that's your response?

09:54

You should probably buy some? I bought the ones that you're using. Yeah, we bought those, guys.

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I'm going to take this jacket off and you're flip -flops and shorts.

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Everybody knows our position on the issue of child sacrifice and that we have been trying to end the injustice at the facilities where they're doing it.

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We're saving lives. We've raised up over 900 churches to do so. They've saved tens of thousands of lives, and to go to the legislatures and actually put bills of equal protection in.

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We're going to tell you guys today about next year. Stay tuned for it. We have the biggest year we've ever had coming up,

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Lord willing, but that's with the commitments we have. We have a number of states, Kentucky, we have Louisiana, we have

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Georgia, we have Arizona, Texas, we have Alabama, we have Colorado. We are helping in Idaho and South Dakota.

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It's a big year. But everyone knows that we've been fighting against this as Christians, explicitly using the gospel and standing for immediate justice.

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The verse that I read at the beginning of the show is one of many verses that you can demonstrate in principle.

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You have to stand for truth. You have to stand for day. Don't delay justice. The text that I showed you is from Proverbs 3, verse 27.

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Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to do it. Do not say to your neighbor, go and come again tomorrow.

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I will give it to you when you have it with you. This is, to us, a powerful principle because when we were in Louisiana this past year, we were in Louisiana, we put the bill in, and the pro -life establishment and the legislators who were professing to be pro -life said the bill needs to be done, but now is not the time.

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Now is not the time. No courage. They wanted a compromise. They were just focused on regulation. And so the pro -life establishment killed the bill of equal protection and abolition in the state of Louisiana.

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They actually worked together, if you didn't know this, with over 70 pro -life organizations across the United States of America to send a specific bill because of our bill, our bill didn't mention a mother.

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It didn't criminalize a person. It criminalized conduct. The conduct is what it criminalized.

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And anybody who's related to that conduct would get penalized like every other issue in law is that you're talking about the conduct and then here's the consequence.

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And so the establishment said, you know, we're going to reject that bill, we're going to regulate it, sort of a thing.

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And they wanted to avoid anything that would ever say that a woman or man is guilty, the mother or father ever guilty for actually engaging in sacrificing their child.

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And so what we have been saying is that that will lead to a lot of DIY abortions.

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That's what's going to happen is that you are setting the stage to amp up the industry, the pill industry, to do this at DIY, do it yourself at home.

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And because they will not be consistent, because they will not be fundamentally

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Christian, because they will not use God's law word as the foundation to stand on upon which they fight, they create an industry of DIY at home.

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I don't want to use the word very much because this video will get censored or shadow banned. I'll try to avoid it. And so we've been saying that to them.

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Because you're doing this inconsistently, because you won't do this as equal protection, you're just creating an industry over here.

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Well, now, of course, we were right, of course, not because we're special, because that's a logical consequence of you and your inconsistency.

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Now, Students for Life, Students for Life, which I have a lot of hope for, and I'm hoping that they become consistent and they actually stand for justice and they do right and good for their neighbor to whom it is due, when it is in their power to do it, not delay justice.

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They are actually fighting now. They're fighting now by saying that the abortion pill,

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I did it, I already said it. Okay, the pill you should not have the pill because it actually pollutes the water.

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So if people are using the pill and they do it all in the toilet, then it's going to pollute the water system itself and that's bad for the environment.

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So they're co -opting the environmentalist strategy rather than just saying, this is murder, this is evil, we should stop it.

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You need to end it now. I mean, can you imagine, like during the time of Auschwitz or any of the other concentration camps in Germany as a

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Christian can you imagine arguing against the concentration camps because of the carbon footprints or the environmental footprints that it would put in German towns that it would actually be harmful to have that many people there being killed and doing what they're doing.

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It would actually pollute the neighboring towns to have these concentration camps. So we should stop the concentration camps because of the footprint, the environmental footprint.

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Can you imagine arguing against it like that? No, I cannot. It's an injustice.

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And the fact of the matter is it's easy to talk about Auschwitz and it's easy to talk about slavery because it's behind us. It's so behind us and because the

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Christian worldview essentially conquered those things, it's behind us. Those truths that only make sense in the

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Christian worldview put those things behind us. So it's very easy to stand tall today with your chest up and say, oh yeah, Auschwitz and slavery, evil, wrong.

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I don't understand why Hitler did the things he did in hopes that we would never repeat them. I think that the extent of our education on Hitler is just don't kill millions of people and you'll be fine.

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Don't be Hitler and you'll be a good moral person. And that's the kind of thinking that starts making superficial, which is a nice word for the word

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I want to say, arguments like that. I just don't.

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Someone really tried with that whole environmental, oh it's bad for the environment thing, but it's nothing.

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That's stupid. Question, sorry. Are you guys seeing my comment in the live stream where I said the visit and a

16:20

I'm not. Something .com I don't think you can put web addresses there.

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I don't believe not there. I thought that's interesting. I don't believe you can. You were talking about that. I put it in there and it's not there.

16:34

Yeah, I think that they they don't allow that in those comments. Maybe, maybe I'm it could be wrong with that. So by the way, super chats, everybody.

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If you have a question, we're going to do questions at the end of all of this. And so if you do a super chat, we'll try to prioritize your questions at the end of the show today.

16:51

Gabe's really happy with me right now for saying that. Thank you, Gabe. So just for the screen here, guys, this is

16:57

Politico. So you guys can see what we're talking about here. This is Politico. I believe this is today. It says the next abortion fight could be over wastewater regulation.

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Abortion opponents plan to use environmental laws to curb access to pills used to terminate an early pregnancy. Abortion opponents and their allies in elected

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Oh, that's that's just the answer. OK, OK. The abortion opponents and their allies in elected office are seizing on an unusual strategy after suffering a wave of election defeats using environmental laws to try to block the distribution of abortion pills.

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The new approach comes as the pills which people can take at home during the first 10 weeks of a pregnancy have become the most common method of abortion in the

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US and virtually the only option for millions of people in the states with laws that have forced clinics to close since the fall of Roe v.

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Wade. And there you go. There is the admission even in Politico. You might close down the mills, but you haven't established justice.

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Roe's falling has not established justice. And I want to encourage you as a brother or sister in Christ, please hear me on this very humbly.

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I'm not talking down to you. I'm looking at you eye to eye. Roe's falling did not didn't do anything.

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It didn't end the injustice. We haven't done anything about the injustice. You need equal protection because in all of the states where you may have an ending of a mill in operation, now you have a massive, massive, massive, massive pill industry happening.

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Look up the numbers. See the numbers, how they have skyrocketed for the pill. It's all DIY. And the establishment, the pro -life establishments approach and methodology, their worldview and their system cannot address the problem because they do not believe a woman or a father, a mother or father, bears any guilt in this situation.

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They are victims themselves. So they will keep the DIY industry alive. Except for against the environment.

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Well, that's exactly right. Here we go. So it says here, it says the first salvo started last week with a petition asking the

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Food and Drug Administration to require any doctor who prescribes the pills to be responsible for disposing of the fetal tissue which anti -abortion advocates want to be bagged and treated as medical waste rather than flushed down the toilet and into the wastewater.

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If the FDA ignores or rejects the petition, as is expected, the group Students for Life of America plans to sue.

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The new push is the culmination of years of brainstorming around how to restrict access to the pills, particularly since their use surged following the outbreak of COVID -19 and the

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FDA's ruling in 2021 that they are safe to take it home without a doctor present. Quote, we knew chemical abortion was the future even before Dobbs happened, said

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Christy Hamrick, the chief policy strategist for Students for Life who called her organization's environmental focus, quote, the next innovation in ending the use of this damaged tool of abortion.

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While they deride the tactic, abortion rights advocates fear the wastewater arguments could have a chilling effect even in states where abortion remains legal, making doctors hesitant to prescribe the pills and patients afraid to seek them.

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So here's the strategy. The strategy of Students for Life is rather than doing good to your neighbor to whom it is due, rather than when it's in your power to do so, rather than not saying to your neighbor, go and come again tomorrow,

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I'll give it to you when you have it with you, they have decided, well, let's just play around the edges of this.

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Let's not address the issue. Let's not address the issue of the taking of human life, the unjust taking of human life. Let's actually say, yeah, but you're going to pollute the groundwater.

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Let's say you're going to hurt the environment. You're going to harm your neighbors with their water.

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Well, there actually is a neighbor that's harmed first in all of this that you should be most concerned with. And why are we playing around the edges?

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Why are we being compromised? Why are we so compromised? Why are we being so inconsistent? And why do we lack so much courage just to tell the truth and to fight consistently?

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The truth is, you know, put it this way. So flattery is a sin, right?

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So flattery is a sin. Why? Because you're lying to the person in front of you about what you really believe.

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Right? So you are flattering a person and you're not being honest about what's actually in your heart.

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So flattery is a sin because it is engaging in the nature of lying. Right? And usually you're doing it in order to manipulate someone.

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Yeah, exactly. It is manipulation. And so in this strategy of Students for Life, it's not honest.

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There's no integrity here. It's not what you really believe. It's that you so lack courage that you're playing around the edges of this and not just being forthright, upfront.

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I believe, because many of the Students for Life are professing believers. I believe this is in the image of God. I believe it's a unique creation of God.

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I believe that it is human from conception and that it is the unjustified taking of human life. You are supposed to believe that.

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You say you believe it. And yet, you're fighting over issues of groundwater? The environment?

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So what you're doing is you're saying, hey, those environmentalists over there, they believe really strongly in this.

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So rather than just confronting the sin that they're guilty of in terms of this issue, I'm going to try to step into their position and talk about just like the things that they love and sort of placate to their sensitivities so that maybe we can establish justice, kind of.

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What's the real issue with the pill? Is that a woman is unjustly taking the life of her pre -born child? Why don't you just say that?

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Why don't you just say this is the moral issue, right? And it's like, again, like we've said many times before, the issue of slavery.

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Can you imagine fighting during the times of slavery? Can you imagine arguments then saying like, well, you know, just don't use any hard metal objects to beat them.

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Like, you know, you can only use soft tools to beat your slave. Like those kinds of regulation bills. Like you can beat your slave, you know, at least some of them, but use something soft.

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Don't use anything hard. If you said that out loud today, people would laugh you to scorn. They'd say, what are you talking about?

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Just don't do it. It's evil. What are you talking? That's an abomination. And yet we can laugh at those kind of silly arguments happening back then, using them back then, but you're using the same things today because it's just compromise and cowardice.

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Let's just call it what it is. You are a coward. You won't tell the truth. You will not speak the truth boldly.

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And because of that, you're playing around the edges. Stop playing around the edges because it is people's lives that are at stake.

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This is not something that's just in theory up here. They are murdering people every single day.

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And we're talking about groundwater? You're trying to protect the water that a dead child is being flushed away with.

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Yeah. Let's talk about the child going down there. They'll literally use any excuse they can to stop abortion except for the one that counts.

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Yeah, you know, Zach Conover made a good point as I walked in here today because he's the one that introduced me to this article itself.

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He was talking about how in the past, God, you know, when Israel seeped and fell into idolatry, God made them melt their idols down and drink them.

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And this is like the idol of our culture. God's making them drink their idols. But that would just be judgment.

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So all that to say, we need to be consistent. It matters a lot. You guys want to fill anything out here before I continue on?

24:19

I'll go for it. Okay. So now on to good news. We thought it'd be good.

24:25

This is, by the way, our year -end Apologia radio episode. It's the last episode of 2022.

24:32

So yay, applause. 2022, we got Christmas break. We're serious about Christmas here.

24:37

So we're trying to do Christmas break for everybody on our staff. Apparently except for music. I will find something.

24:43

I will find something. We have a big year ahead of us next year. I mean, really, it's going to be tough.

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So pray for us and we're going to need your help for next year. The first quarter of next year with all of these states happening at once, we are going to need your support.

24:58

And I don't mean just financial support. We need that. Trust me, we need it to do these things. But we need you to meet with us in the states that we're going.

25:05

We really need you there with us. We need you to partner with us. And we're going to fill you in at the end as to what that will look like.

25:11

So last show of the year, we wanted to do something hopefully encouraging. Not yesterday.

25:18

Two days ago was Augustine's third birthday. And we thought, or at least

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I thought, it'd be good to share this story because as I share this story with you all,

25:31

I want to just remind us all that as cool and amazing and as God -honoring,

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God -glorifying as Augustine's story is, he is just one. He's one life.

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He's spectacular. But he's one life. Just one.

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And his story is the story of a person who was saved from abortion.

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And we were totally surprised. I mean, Luke knows that whole circumstance. I'm on the phone with Pastor Luke and Pastor Zach and I'm like, what do

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I do here? We had long conversations about how would I take this on. I mean, there was questions the elders, we all had.

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How would it be possible for me to take on a baby with the worst stage of spina bifida?

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We had very serious conversations because, and I'm not an expert in this field, but from what I understand what was told to us by the doctors, there's a spectrum of four different stages of spina bifida.

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One that's sort of like that bottom stage is not so serious, but you get to the fourth stage and it could be like wheelchair for life and it could be brain damage, that kind of stuff.

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Well, when we were presented with the opportunity to present Augustine, he was still in his birth mother's womb and he still had a couple months to go.

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And we were told, verifiably through ultrasound and all the rest, like many tests, that he was on the worst side of spina bifida, the fourth.

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And they said he was on the better side of the worst. So he's in that category of the worst.

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They said he could have brain damage. He may never be able to interact and speak. They said he could be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

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And so, yeah, when we were presented with this, you better be sure it was very challenging because we have always wanted to adopt.

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I mean, that's kind of what we do at Apologia. We're like, we're at the abortion mill. We're like, we'll adopt your baby. And we mean it.

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Like, we mean it. We have a church body of people all committed to it. And we've meant it. Candy and I have meant it. And, you know, but this was like something different.

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It's like, okay, it's adoption, but he has the worst case of spina bifida. He may never walk.

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And so, yeah, early on, it was like real serious conversations with the elders of like, how would I do this?

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How would it be possible to even accomplish something like this? And so his story starts back at the

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Reform Con and End Abortion Now Conference 2019. It was that week. We had such a busy week.

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I mean, it was, it's a madhouse when you're putting together a conference. And it's very difficult. And weirdly, like this doesn't ever happen to us, right?

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Like we have like that week out of nowhere, three. Yeah, it was a lot.

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Potential adoptions. Yeah. Like, I'd like to say that happens all the time, but the truth of the matter is it never does.

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Like it was like, it was unusual for us. And so like we get this dumped like in one or two days, like, hey, there's three mothers.

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None of them, they're not connected to each other. Just fell in our lap. Like you have a chance to adopt these babies.

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And one, I don't really know the story about, but one was a little girl with Down syndrome.

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She's still in the womb, but she definitely had Down syndrome and it was a girl. And then we learned about August and he was just a little boy still in the womb of his mother and he has spina bifida and it's very serious.

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Like he was going to require two to six weeks of surgery is what they said. He's going to be born and then the hospital is going to be like two to six weeks depending on how bad the brain damage and they had the damage was and they're going to have to put a brain shunt in to drain like fluid from his brain into his belly for his whole life and you know, stuff like that.

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So that week, you know, it's busy and this popped up and Candy was like, what do you think?

29:14

And I'm, I'm, I'm so dang selfish. Seriously. Like I, I'm so dang selfish that I was like, babe,

29:20

I just don't have any time to think about this this week. It's, I have like two conferences and I have to preach this

29:25

Sunday and I have so much going on. I just, I just, I don't, I don't know. I don't know. Let's just wait and see what the Lord does and so what was amazing is that like the first thought was like, well, it's going to be the little girl with Down syndrome.

29:35

Maybe we'll take her into our family and it was interesting because Candy was like, well,

29:41

God has called us to do these things. We, we maybe have to do this and I was like, you have to, there, there's a moment where it's like, did

29:49

I really mean what I said? Okay. Yeah. Now we're going to get to that really deeply with me. So, so I was like, which is, which,

29:58

I mean, this is a little bit of an aside, but this is the issue that we're encountering with the pro -life world.

30:05

Yeah. Do I actually, do I, and, and just in general, the church in general, do

30:11

I actually apply my convictions? Do I do the things I'm convicted to do?

30:17

Do I not do the things I'm convicted to not do? Like actually living it out. Exactly right. Christians can talk, can talk a good game.

30:23

Yep. We can talk a good game, all of us. And this was the moment where God checked me. Are you just talking a good game?

30:30

Right. And so I just said to her with the girl, I said, if that's the Lord wants, we'll do it, but we need to make sure our family's involved because a little girl with Down syndrome is a lifelong commitment.

30:39

That's not just for us, babe. It's, it's for our whole family. So Candy goes like to Saylor, my, my daughter, and she says, what do you think about adopting this girl with Down syndrome?

30:49

And Saylor is like, has such a sweet heart. She's like, she would do anything and she was, but she, but she had this weird sort of like,

30:56

I don't know, like not that she was opposed to it. She was just like, I don't know. I don't,

31:01

I don't know how I feel. I don't know. I don't feel like, like I don't know if, I don't feel like I, I, I'm in, I'm in there, like I'm there.

31:08

And so Candy was like, you know, okay, mark it down. Like, you know, we got to listen to our family. You know, you're bringing everyone into this.

31:13

It's our, it's our family's commitment. And so it was like with that, like she was like, huh, Saylor, for some reason,

31:19

Saylor didn't feel it. Like, you know, and so we sort of move on. Next thing you know, we start getting pressed more and more towards this little boy who's in the womb with spina bifida.

31:29

Now, I will be honest. I was terrified. Like, I mean, truly, truly terrified.

31:35

I mean, how would I possibly do this? I mean, Luke knows my schedule, you know, my schedule pretty much.

31:42

How? I mean, honestly, like how would it, we're in our forties now. I'm still young and spry, but it's still like you're taking on a baby.

31:51

Yeah. And Luke knows Luke just had a beautiful little boy. Um, Jonas, and he's giving me a run for my money.

31:56

It hits different in your forties. It just does. It's true. It does. Like, you know, like the sleeplessness.

32:03

Very true. The sleeplessness in your twenties and early thirties is one thing, but when you're in your forties and you get like two hours of sleep, it hits different.

32:10

Yeah. And so, you know, we all feel this. So I'm, you know, I'm just like, I'm terrified. I was terrified.

32:17

Genuinely terrified. So I, this tells you how sinful and stupid and selfish I am. I didn't want to talk about it.

32:22

I wasn't mean about it. I was just like, all right, baby, let's, let's pray about it. You know, it was sort of like the easy way out of the conversation.

32:29

Let's just pray about it. And she was just, she was so sweet. Candy was so sweet the whole way through. She wasn't pressuring.

32:35

She was just like, well, the Lord's called us to have our hearts open. We need to listen to him. If this is it, then this is what we have to do.

32:40

And I was like, oh, of course, babe. Yeah. But I'm in the middle of a conference right now. I can't talk about that. And so it starts getting more and more pressure.

32:47

And so then I find out that this little boy in the womb is in certain circumstances where the state was going to be involved in the matter of days.

32:54

Like basically, if we didn't have a family picked for him for adoption, I think by like the next

32:59

Wednesday or Thursday, the state was going to basically take ownership of him before he was even out of the womb. So it was like a fast.

33:06

You need to make a decision quickly. So I'm just like, all right, I, I, I can't think about this right now.

33:13

I got to focus on what the Lord has in front of me, but yeah, let's pray about it. And so all the while this is going on, like Candy is like praying.

33:20

She's like, this is our son. She's like, this is him. But she was just being so gentle and sweet with me.

33:26

She wasn't being overbearing. She was just like, Hey, you need to know this. Like if we have till next Wednesday or the state, the state is going to take, she's poking me, she's poking me where she knows that I need.

33:39

She's like, or, or the beast will, will devour him. And she knows me well.

33:45

So then Saturday of the conference, I'm all ready for my sermon. I have my whole sermon ready.

33:51

I have my whole sermon written out for, uh, for the conference. And, I feel this like dread and weight hit me.

33:59

And it was so strange because it just like came right. As soon as I got up, it was like this, just like weight on me.

34:05

And I couldn't figure out what was going on. I didn't know why I felt so sad. And I felt like I just had this weight care.

34:10

Like I was just dragging this weight. So the day goes on and Luke comes to me about an hour before I had to speak.

34:19

And he was like, you ready dude? And I was like, no, like I'm, something's wrong. And Luke was, I think

34:24

Luke was like, even like what, like what's wrong? I was like, I don't know. Like, pray for me. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know. And then, um, like a half an hour later, like Zach passes that comes and he's like,

34:32

Hey, you ready, man? And I'm praying for you. I was like, yeah, something's wrong. He's like, what's wrong? I was like, I don't know.

34:38

Like, I don't know what's wrong with me. And he's just like, are you okay? I was like, I don't know, man. Like, I feel like just like something's wrong.

34:46

Like, this just felt this heaviness. And then I find out like later. So if you want to see that message, you see me completely break down and just ruin the whole message.

34:54

It's just like, it's just like 45 minutes of me crying because I read Isaiah chapter one and I read it to challenge.

35:01

Yeah. I read it to challenge believers to like all your religious stuff you're doing, but you won't correct oppression and stand up for the fatherless.

35:10

You know, it's a lie. God doesn't even want your worship. And I'm reading it. I'm like, Oh my gosh, that's me. Right here.

35:17

We are having a conference here. Am I here? I'm constantly talking about like you got to lay your life down and sacrifice, but I'm terrified because I don't know how

35:24

I'm going to take care of a little boy with spina bifida, but I have this weight and I'm bawling my eyes out in the message.

35:30

And again, I ruined the whole message. It didn't even touch what I had to do. And then

35:35

I find out that Desi and Candy had been praying that morning for God to put a weight and a burden upon the father of this baby.

35:45

It just comes out of nowhere. It's like, I'm just like, what's wrong with me? Like I can't, I can't breathe. And so I find that out and that throws me because I'm like,

35:54

I'm reading Isaiah one to try to challenge everyone else, but I'm literally such a hypocrite because I'm doing all these religious things, but I'm so selfish that all

36:02

I care about is how will I accomplish this? Not that I didn't want to do it. It was more like my such distrust of God.

36:09

Like he, he wouldn't give me the strength to do it. Like there, you know what I'm saying? It was just like unbelief. Like it wasn't like,

36:15

I won't do it. It was like, how could you possibly ask me to do this? That's what I was dealing with. So I'm talking to Luke.

36:21

I'm talking to Zach. So the next day, that's Saturday, the next day conference is going on and no, no conference is over.

36:28

Now church is going on, but we found out that the mother, um, that August was, was in, uh, was wanted to meet with families who were willing to adopt.

36:40

Now, mind you, this is like happening so fast. There's no time to gather families. No, one's even talked yet.

36:46

And so Candy and I were like, well, we'll just go to ask questions. Like we'll meet her at Starbucks.

36:52

We'll go to ask questions. And, um, so Candy praise

36:57

Lord, if he's our son, I want her to answer these questions. And so she like lists out to God what

37:05

I want answers for. And so we get there, we don't know her. And guess what? In walks the birth mother and Tabitha Tabitha, who everybody in the

37:15

Valley, who's a Christian and does tattoos knows Tabitha. She's this famous local, you know, Christian tattoo artist.

37:21

I know Tabitha, not personally, but I know of her. I've seen her pictures. Everyone knows Tabitha. She comes walking in with the birth mom.

37:27

And I'm like, Tabitha. And she's like, yeah, I was like, I know who you are. I've got friends that got tattooed.

37:33

Yeah. Luke got tattooed by you. And she's like, what? I'm like, yeah, like how this is weird. So then the birth mom sits down with Candy and I, and she just starts like giving like details.

37:44

Candy's not even asking her. She's just giving all the details. And they were all the answers to the questions that Candy had asked the Lord for specific ones.

37:51

And she just started giving them. So then that night after church, we call an emergency meeting with families.

37:56

We say there's a little boy. He has to be adopted by Wednesday or commitment has to be made by Wednesday. The state gets involved.

38:02

We need families who are willing to, to adopt him to come meet after church. Now, mind you my scene, I sit after church and I'm sitting watching one family, precious families.

38:10

Every one of them, one family had already has multiple children and a little girl who has leg braces on because she already has spina bifida.

38:17

And they're like, we'll take, we'll take them. And I'm thinking to myself, how could we do this to this family? They got all of these babies and babies coming.

38:24

And they got one with spina bifida already, who already has to do physical therapy, like throughout the week. And so I'm like,

38:30

Oh, then I look over this other precious family. mind you, I'm looking at a room right now with a bunch of moms who have bellies about to burst.

38:37

Yeah. They're all pregnant and they're about to give birth. And they're all saying, we'll take him.

38:45

And I just felt like such, you know what I'm saying? Like, I felt like such, like you are so weak and pathetic.

38:54

Like here are all these families. They got multiple children, babies about to drop. And they're saying, I'm going to hold one newborn here.

38:59

And then another newborn with spina bifida. And I'm just like, what is wrong with me? Like, I'm not trusting

39:05

God. What is happening? So then it comes over. Everyone's giving pros and cons pros. This is what it would do for our family.

39:10

Here's how it would be great in cons. Here's how we would have a real hard time. Then it gets a Desi. And she's just like lit up like a

39:17

Christmas tree. She's like, Oh, well, here's the pros. Like it would do this and we could do this and we could do this. And here's how we can accomplish it.

39:23

And she goes, here's the pros and here's the cons. And the cons were actually kind of serious, but then she just stops like dead in the conversation, looks over at me directly.

39:32

Now, mind you, I left a part of that story. I had been praying these little minor prayers to God, like kind of fearful prayers.

39:39

Like you're afraid to, you're afraid for God to answer. So I'm throwing it out. I'm giving it. I'm going to, I'm going to ask you for something.

39:44

God told your wife you'd pray. So you couldn't break your word, but it's one of those things where like, it's the kind of prayer where you're like,

39:51

Lord, please free me from this sin. But you know, it's going to be, he's going to do it.

39:57

Yeah. And it's going to be really challenging, you know what I'm saying? Like whether it's your anger or whatever, like he's going to, he's going to wreck you.

40:03

He's going to work you over. You don't, you don't know if you're quite ready yet, but you know you need to pray the prayer.

40:08

Dangerous prayers. So I prayed to God. I said, Lord, if you want me, I was kind of defiant. If you want me to do this, then you have to tell me through your people that I'm his father.

40:18

That's what I want to hear. I want to hear your people saying you're his father. And so we're sitting there,

40:24

Desi's talking and she's smiling and everything. She's fine. and she goes, she stops and she just starts to cry.

40:30

And she looks right at me and she says, I have to, I have to tell you, I think you're his father. And I'm just like, oh, it wasn't like.

40:37

Who invited Desi? I know. It wasn't like, it was more like I knew that God was talking to me.

40:44

And I was so afraid of what he was going to say. You know what I'm saying? I was so afraid of how he was going to confront me.

40:53

And so I, I'm tearing up. And so we drive home that night. Now this is spectacular because this really happened.

41:00

We drive home and mind you, I have been like hands off the whole time. I don't want to talk about it. Let's just pray about it. Let's put it in the

41:05

Lord's hands. Let's let him move. So we're driving home. Candy's in the car. Stella's in the car and sailors in the car driving home from church.

41:11

No one else is in the car except for us. And so now we start to have a conversation like, well, what, what if it was us?

41:19

And so Candy says, what would we call him? And so I said for the first time ever, and I don't even know where it came from in that moment, but I said, if he was ours,

41:30

I would want to name him Augustine. And then Candy goes, well, people would call him

41:35

August. I said, yeah, that's great. I would want him. I would want to name him Augustine. And so then she, she's been asking the

41:42

Lord Candy. She says, Lord, if you want, if he's our son, you need to change sailor's heart completely.

41:48

Make her fully confident, like 180 degrees. So she's been praying that silently. And next thing you know, she turns around.

41:54

She asks sailor. She says, well, how would you feel about adopting him? And she goes, oh yeah, absolutely.

42:01

She goes, absolutely. Let's do it. Absolutely. And we was like, Kenny, I looked at her like, what?

42:07

And of course, stellar immediately stellar goes, it's my brother. Like, what are you waiting for? He's like, immediately.

42:12

He's like, that's my brother. So then it hits me in that moment. I go, we're making a mistake. We shouldn't be talking like this because we're like getting our hearts involved.

42:22

And I don't want to commit the family when, when we don't even know anything yet. So I just leave it at that. And I'm kind of like,

42:27

I'm just like, all right, let's pray. So that night we go to bed, we pray before bed. Lord, if you want us to take him

42:34

Lord, then speak to us through your people. Let them tell us that we're supposed, we are his family and then

42:40

I'm his father. So go to bed, wake up like eight in the morning.

42:46

And I wake up to candy sitting at the edge of my bed, which is not normal. She doesn't usually like wake up sitting, staring at me, like, or I'm not waking up sitting like watching her stare at me.

42:54

So I wake up and I see her sitting at the edge of the bed and she's looking right at me and she's got her phone in her hand. And she goes, so I'm beginning messages this morning.

43:01

And I'm like, okay. And I'm still like wiping my eyes. And she starts reading off messages from people in our church body that are literally just messaging her randomly saying,

43:10

Hey, I just want you to know I was praying. And I think that he's your son. Just kidding.

43:15

That's what we asked him for. And then this was the heavy one. Then Desi messages. And Desi says,

43:21

Hey, I know we're all praying today. We're fasting as a church about like, who's supposed to take this little boy. She goes, but I was just praying.

43:26

And I just wanted you to know that I think that like, if you guys got him, you should call him, you should call him

43:32

Augustine. That Desi. It was such a weird, like punch to the chest.

43:42

So I like literally the moment I heard that, because I'm saying, God, let me know. I'm his father.

43:48

Right. And I named him. And so it was just like, God was talking right to me. So I'm like tearing up and crying.

43:54

And Kenny's like, okay, we need to talk. And I literally like jumped out of bed. And I was like, babe, I got to go pray. She's like, well, where I'm just like,

44:01

I have to leave now. I have to go pray. And that's, you know, unusual just to skip, you know, out of the house and just go run and pray like that.

44:07

And so I like ran out of the house, got in the car and I drive to the desert. And I had the most crazy experience of my

44:15

Christian life in the desert that day, where I'm telling you, I haven't cried that hard in my life.

44:20

I'm in my car, bawling my eyes out and eventually got out of the car to catch my breath. And I go over and I'm in the desert, like on the ground.

44:29

And I'm like bawling. I have like snot. I'm bawling. And I'm just like begging God. I'm just like,

44:35

I'm kind of like, in a sense, like saying, thank you, God, I'll do whatever you say, but kind of mad at him.

44:41

Like, why are you making me do this? Like, how can you ask me to handle all this stuff that you've given me to do?

44:48

And like, I'll adopt God, but do you really want me to adopt in these kinds of circumstances? Like, how could you expect me to fulfill what you've called me to when

44:55

I'm doing this? Right. So I'm like, I'm crying and I'm praying and I'm worshiping. And then finally, after like two hours, something just comes over me, a peace.

45:04

I'm just like, Lord, I'll trust you. Whatever you want, I will trust you. I will do it if that's what you're calling me to do.

45:10

And then this peace just came over me. And it was just the most amazing experience because I'm just like bickering with God, yelling at God, you know, are you sure?

45:19

This sort of thing, you know? And then it just hits me like, this is what you're calling me to do.

45:25

And so I come home and I tell Candy, he's our son. And you know, now it's like we got to move.

45:32

And so some more stuff happened. I'll leave out. But basically we get to that evening, we call the birth mother and she had been praying that we would take him.

45:40

We were her pick. And so we said, we're going to adopt him. And so now mind you, adoption is insanely expensive.

45:48

Sadly, we didn't have the money for it. It was like, you got to come up with $30 ,000 and we didn't have it, especially like at that short notice.

45:56

Yeah. And so it was like, okay, we got to do all this by Wednesday, sort of a thing. Get this all locked in.

46:02

Well, and like aside from the money, even just paperwork and getting things signed and notarized.

46:08

And we were one month away. Yeah. And we had nothing ready. And so, um, one month away, nothing ready.

46:14

We didn't come up with, we also going to come up with $30 ,000. He's about to be born in a month. And so I put at 7

46:21

PM, I put the word out on my social media platform. I said, Hey, we're adopting a little boy with the worst case of spina bifida.

46:26

It's been confirmed through ultrasound and all this other stuff. and, and he needs two to six weeks of surgeries, but we're going to take him into our family.

46:34

He's our son. Um, it's going to cost $30 ,000. I don't have it. If you'd like to help me with this, you know, here's a link.

46:39

And that was at 7 PM, 7 AM. I wake up and the whole thing is completely paid. Yeah. $30 ,000 overnight while I slept.

46:49

That's how God is. He's like, you're not going to have to work for this at all. I won't even make you go like laboring for it.

46:54

Like, you know, I will let you sleep while I find it for you. And so, wake up to now this whole thing's fully funded.

47:01

Now, fast forward. Uh, so many things happened that were miraculous during the month. But so fast forward to December 13th, 2019.

47:08

Um, we were supposed to be there for his C -section. It was supposed to, uh, be a C -section because, the spine was open and you can see it.

47:17

I'll show you the ultrasound in a moment here. Just one of them. The spine was open and there's like a membrane that's over the spine that you can't burst or whatever.

47:24

It's, I don't know all the details, but it's serious. So they, they took him by C -section not to, not to mess with his spine.

47:30

And they had a surgical team that was like ready to do the two to six weeks of surgery. There was a brain surgeon and all that stuff.

47:37

Spinal surgeon, like the best surgeon in Arizona was actually assigned to him. And, uh, that does this.

47:42

And so they were going to C -section, take him out, bring him right to the NICU, uh, the newborn intensive care units.

47:48

And no one's allowed to touch him is what we were told for like weeks. You could see him, but not touch him. They were going to basically put him on his belly and, uh, do surgery immediately on his back.

47:57

And so like we're in the hospital waiting room. Tabitha is in the back with the mom in surgery and solid believer, loves

48:08

Jesus, saved his life. Uh, I'll get to that in just, just a moment. She's, she's the one that saved August life. So we're in that waiting room and it's taking a long time.

48:17

And so Candy and I like, let's get it. So let's get some coffee. So we go to Starbucks and, um, get some coffee.

48:22

And then Candy, this is weird how this all happened because I hadn't talked like this before then. Candy goes,

48:28

Hey, are you ready? Like we're minutes away. She goes, are you ready? I said, yeah, what do you mean? Ready for what?

48:33

And she goes, are you ready for this whole thing? And I said, man, this is our son. I'm ready. And she goes, are you ready for this to be worse than we think?

48:43

And I said, babe, he's our son. God's told us to do this. We're doing it. And so she goes, okay. I said, but are you ready?

48:50

And she goes, huh? And then mind you, I hadn't been talking like this. I said, are you ready? She goes, for what?

48:57

I said, for God to completely heal him. And she was like, of course, of course.

49:03

I know he can. Like you're in a stage where you're like, I know he can. I'm just not so sure. Not so sure he's gonna.

49:09

But she was like, of course. I said, okay. That's what you need to be ready for.

49:15

And I'm like, hold my chest. I'm like, that's what you need to be ready for. So we get back to the hospital. We get back to the waiting room and Candy's texting

49:22

Tabitha. Cause she's in surgery. How are things? She's not answering. What's going on? Is he okay? Are you guys okay?

49:28

Is she okay? And nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing. She's like, why isn't having the messaging back? It's taken forever. So then

49:34

Tabitha is like, I'll be there in a minute. Just like that. Tabitha comes walking out of surgery, walks into the waiting room.

49:42

Just nothing. I mean, she, she looked bad. Yeah. And she comes in.

49:48

She just looks at, she goes, come with me. And we're like, we can't even look at each other. We went, Oh no. Yeah.

49:54

We're like, it's, it's worse. And so we follow her. We, we go through these double doors, walking on this, this hospital thing.

50:00

And we're, we're, we're not going to the NICU, which I thought was so weird. And so we're not going to the

50:06

NICU. And we're now we're going to this post -op, the surgery thing. And I'm like, why are we, I'm like following, like, why are we doing this?

50:11

And like Tabitha's in front, no expression. She's just walking with her head down. And I'm like, Oh no.

50:17

And so, but now I'm like, what's going on? Why are we doing this? So we go through the post -op thing and now we walk into this big wide open room.

50:23

Only people in there is a nurse and then his birth mom and he's laying on her chest. And we were told nobody can touch him for like two to six weeks.

50:33

He's hands off. I'm like thinking to myself, why are we not NICU? And why is she holding him?

50:39

And then all of a sudden, like the whole room bursts out. Tabitha, the birth mother, the nurse, the nurse is crying.

50:46

I mean, it's just like bursts out and they're like, he's, he's whole, he's whole. And the nurse grabs him and she like, all

50:53

I remember is like kind of flipping him over, like rolled him over. And like, she just lifts him up and shows his back.

50:58

And it was like shouts. And all I remember is this, like for a moment, I, I, I'm telling you the truth.

51:04

It felt like absolute chaos. Like a tornado was in that room. Like it was just, it just felt like the room was just spinning and spinning and people are screaming and candy screaming, like legit, like yelling.

51:17

And so I just fell to my knees by the bed and I, it just, I couldn't move. I couldn't think,

51:23

I couldn't form a sentence. You're just in awe. And he was completely healed. He, his back was healed, no brain issues.

51:31

And just like a week before, two weeks before, he'd had like the last ultrasound with the big open hole in his spine and everything else.

51:39

And, and so you're just like in this stunned silence.

51:45

And so like I, I've mentioned before during church services, I've said like when you don't, now

51:50

I, I read the accounts of the miracles of Jesus in a different way. Just because when you, when you were, when

51:57

God does it and you witness it and you're sort of in the middle of it, you just get to sort of like just observe

52:02

God doing something. And it's against the natural order. It's against all expectations. You, you don't like,

52:10

I know what those people felt like when they saw Jesus give somebody legs. It wasn't just sort of like, wow, that's, that's, well, that's incredible.

52:16

Like amazing. It is like, you're just like, I don't know how to,

52:22

I can't talk. I don't know what to say. And so like I wanted to show you guys that this was, we had only shared this with our church body because our whole church was praying.

52:34

We had Christians around the world praying. We'd only share this with our church body. Right after we found out.

52:40

So this, honestly, this video is probably like 45 minutes after it happened right outside the hospital.

52:46

And this was first private, just to our church members page. But I just wanted to share with you guys sort of like this is what it looks like when you witness a miracle.

52:56

Oops. For some reason, I got no audio. There you go. There's a buzz. Okay, ready?

53:04

Hi, everybody. Hi. Hello. So, sorry, we're just still in a bit of shock right now.

53:13

I just can't talk right now. I don't even know what to say. Should you come back? No, I can, just give me a second.

53:20

So, I guess, August is here. He weighs eight pounds, seven pounds, 12 ounces, seven pounds, 12 ounces, 19 inches long.

53:32

He's beautiful. We haven't shared pictures yet, but we will. And, yeah.

53:39

So, I'm still in shock. We're all in shock right now. I should start by saying this.

53:45

Candy went to the doctor's appointment with the mom last week, and the doctors told her that they had seen a lesion in the opening on the other ultrasounds, and that on the spectrum of spina bifida, he was on the worst case side of spina bifida, and that there's a spectrum, and they saw stuff with, of course, they saw the spine coming out, all that stuff, and she just delivered him, and he is completely whole.

54:16

Nothing. There is nothing. Nothing.

54:24

I don't have anything to say. So, praise the

54:30

Lord. God answered all of our prayers. It's amazing.

54:35

I think we're still in shock. Sarah is in shock. I think Tabitha is in shock, and, yeah.

54:43

When we got into the room to look at him, they didn't tell us. Sarah, the mom, she didn't tell us, and Tabitha, the friend that was in there with her who watched him be born in the

54:56

C -section, when I found out he was born, I'm like, how is he? How's his back? And she wouldn't answer me. I'm like, man,

55:01

Tabitha is being really weird. Why won't she answer me? And then she was like, hey, we want to let you come see him, and I was like, oh, is he in the

55:09

NICU? And she wouldn't answer me, just complete not answering me. Because that's where he was supposed to be. Because he was supposed to be delivered, no one hold him, go right to the

55:16

NICU. And she was like, just come with me, and she wouldn't even make eye contact with us, and so when we got in the room,

55:24

I think the nurse told us, actually, right? I can't remember. I don't even remember what happened. But anyway, the nurse put him on the table and unwrapped him and flipped him over, and his back is fine.

55:34

It's completely normal. Yeah, he's fine. So, praise the Lord with us. Like, we're so...

55:40

I mean, we would have loved him anyway. We were ready for... We were ready to take care of him, no matter what.

55:48

But we're just... Well, you see us. That's how we are. We're just overwhelmed and excited.

55:58

So, for now, we're not making it public. We're just telling our church. Yeah. So...

56:09

I mean, as of right now, all we know is that he's whole. The doctors were flipping him over.

56:14

They kept... They said that they kept... Right after, the hospital, obviously, just stepped outside to do that video, because our whole church was praying and sort of waiting for the answer.

56:25

I wanted to show you guys something. So, just a moment here. I'll pull it up. I can find where this is.

56:32

My computer would stop loading. Actually, let me do this.

56:39

I'm going to pull up. So, just a moment on Tabitha's story. And this is where I wanted to challenge everybody.

56:47

So, Tabitha is the one who saved his life. So, she knew the birth mom.

56:56

And... So... She was friends with the birth mom for years.

57:03

Somehow, in God's providence, she came into contact with the birth mom. And the birth mom was on the way to basically have

57:12

August aborted. So, she had found out at five months that she was pregnant with August. And she was going to have him aborted.

57:21

So, she was going to Colorado, because I think it was too late for Arizona. And so, she was going to Colorado to have him aborted.

57:30

And she runs into Tabitha. Tabitha's a hardcore gangster Christian.

57:36

I mean, like, seriously. She is hardcore and amazing. And so, Tabitha... Here's what she's going to do.

57:43

And Tabitha just goes all in. She's like, you will not murder your son. You will not.

57:49

And she said, they're going to tear his legs off his body, his arms off his body, crush his skull.

57:55

They're going to murder... You're going to murder your son. You will not do that. So, she says, you can live with me for free.

58:01

I will go to every doctor's appointment. We will find a family to adopt him. You will not murder your son.

58:06

And so, she challenges the birth mom, convinces her to move in with her, and says, I will pay for all your food. I will pay for all your housing.

58:12

I will go to every doctor's appointment. We will find a family to adopt him. What I just learned is that Tabitha said for about two weeks...

58:20

I didn't tell you this. For about two weeks... I just learned this two days ago. It was every day.

58:29

The birth mom was like, never mind, I'm leaving. I'm going to do it. And so, Tabitha would confront her, and she would say, just don't do it now.

58:37

Just stay another night. Like, wait until tomorrow. Just tonight, stay here.

58:43

And then, it would happen all again the next day. She said for two whole weeks, it was like, I'm leaving. No, no, please, don't leave.

58:50

And she would just keep preaching to her and give her the gospel. And she was talking to... No, don't. I'll pay for everything. We'll find someone to adopt him.

58:56

Now, mind you, then the birth mother finds out he has spina bifida. Now, it's a whole different set of circumstances.

59:04

It's not just a baby. It's a baby with a lot of difficulty. And so, then she's like, for sure, no one's adopting him.

59:12

For sure, no one's going to want him. And Tabitha said, we're going to find a family to adopt him. You are not murdering your son.

59:18

So, that's Tabitha. Everyone, look. This is Tabitha. She's the one that saved his life.

59:24

This is when he was first born. And there she is. That was in the hospital.

59:32

I think just an hour or two after. And this is another one.

59:39

And that's Tabitha at his birthday, two days ago. There he is, three years old. And that's the woman that saved his life.

59:47

So, that, I think, is an amazing story. And the challenge I want to offer to you is this.

59:55

Tabitha is a Christian who... That was weird.

01:00:01

Tabitha is a Christian who told the truth. She stood in the way, and she sacrificed her mouth.

01:00:07

She sacrificed her reputation. She sacrificed her friendship, if necessary. She sacrificed her goods and her money to provide for the birth mom to say, you will not murder him.

01:00:18

And so, his life was spared because a Christian stood in the way. And did everything that they could to save his life.

01:00:24

She spent her own money. She's not rich. She's not wealthy to any degree. She spent her own money and her own time and sacrificed everything to preserve my son's life.

01:00:33

So, he's alive today because of Tabitha. That's the truth before God. She was going to have him executed.

01:00:40

And Tabitha saved his life. And so, there is another video

01:00:46

I wanted to show you. This is two or three days later. This is when the surgeon who was supposed to do the surgeries over those weeks came in the room to check on him again.

01:00:57

Now, mind you, for days before this video, the doctors, when it first happened, were like in the hallway saying, this can't be explained.

01:01:05

This can't be explained. We've never seen this before. Now, this is the surgeon who's the top surgeon in Arizona for these surgeries.

01:01:11

He's been doing it for like 35 years. He was assigned to Augustine's case. He's been doing it for almost 10 years.

01:01:51

He's been in acute pain. It's so bad, it's really bad. He's been in critical pain. He's been in the hospital for a year and this is the first time he's been given a blood sample. Now, I'm going to show you how this is done.

01:01:58

You want to put him on a chair. You're going to sit on a chair.

01:02:04

You're gonna sit on a chair and you're going to sit on the chair and you're going to sit on the chair OK. In about two weeks, anyway. But if there's a problem, or there's not a problem. There's not a problem.

01:02:12

Can I tell you my feeling? What my thought is, is if there was something, though, which

01:02:17

I know the images show, and I know there's not anything now, and you're a professional, and you know what you're doing.

01:02:23

But if there is, and it's not caught within the first three days, it's good. But what problem?

01:02:31

But there is no problem. There's no problem. You have a normal baby there. If there is something. They say that there was no septum, and then the fluid.

01:02:39

That stuff, ultrasound isn't going to show it very well. OK. Babies, what you need is an

01:02:45

MRI. OK. Ultrasound on the back is useless. You've already had ultrasounds. Right, right, right. It doesn't show anything.

01:02:50

You need an MRI. OK. Babies in the first two or three weeks of birth are really wet, and swollen a little, and puffy.

01:02:57

OK. And the MRI images are horrible. OK. So you wait till all that's gone, and you do any imaging you're going to do then.

01:03:04

OK. So Dr. Tina will get all that. OK. But now it's just, if you did it now, you're going to probably still not be sure.

01:03:11

OK. So just be patient. I know you've been through the ringer. You've been doing this 30 years longer than anybody in Phoenix.

01:03:17

Have you ever seen anything like this, though? Never seen it happen like that. Stop. What? Wow. Well. So there you go.

01:03:27

Doctor's coming in saying he's never seen anything like this in all of his years of practice. That was an amazing moment.

01:03:35

All glory to God. And it's weird, because it's one of those things where you're like, I don't deserve any of this. Like, I mean, you truly don't feel like that.

01:03:42

I don't deserve any of this. Like, why did it happen to us? Like, we were fine with taking him with all that brokenness.

01:03:52

And when it happens, you're just like, it's like one of those things where it's like, God can perform miracles, and he does perform miracles.

01:03:58

But we knew that we couldn't demand it of God. And say, God, you come down and do my bidding. Like, it was just like,

01:04:04

Lord, we'll accept whatever you've got. And I am so glad that God ignored my prayers.

01:04:11

You know what I mean? Like, he ignored my fears. He ignored. That's why

01:04:16

I feel like it was the sweetest thing. When I say it was one of the most compelling experiences of my spiritual life, it was like, he knew the whole time what he was going to do.

01:04:24

So I'm there in the desert like a mess. Like, if people would have saw me, they would have thought I was crazy. I'm a complete mess.

01:04:30

He knew the entire time what he was going to do. And he listened to me. You know what I mean? Like, he didn't chastise me or punish me.

01:04:37

He just listened to me. And he knew what he was going to do. And so that was one of those things where it was like,

01:04:42

I'm so glad, Lord, that you didn't listen to me and my fears. And go, you know, you're right. This is too tough for you.

01:04:49

He's just good. So if you look at the screen here, this is one of the many ultrasounds of Augustine's spine.

01:05:00

None of us are ultrasound techs, probably, so we don't even know what we're looking at. But that was one of the ultrasounds.

01:05:06

This is his official diagnosis. Fetal spina bifida. He had, again, the worst, he was on the worst side of spina bifida.

01:05:17

And that's one of his, some of the paperwork from his file showing the official diagnosis. And so, yeah, that's,

01:05:26

I wanted to show you guys that so you can take a look at some of the official medical stuff. But I'm gonna show you one more thing, and then we're gonna finish the show up talking to you about some important things.

01:05:35

So please don't go just yet because there's some important stuff. This is, I don't even know,

01:05:41

I can't really expand this, can I? No. This is some of the footage from his, candy put together for his third birthday.

01:05:49

And I wanted to say for the YouTube sensors and all that they're going on, we're about to provide commentary on a video that actually has some music in it.

01:05:57

So this is a commentary on a video with music in it. And so, here we go. I'm not sure if, how do

01:06:04

I play this? Do I just, I think I need sound.

01:06:10

Do I have sound going on here? I hear it buzzing. It is buzzing. Where's the,

01:06:20

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's right, there you go. Okay, here we go. So there you go.

01:07:55

So what I wanted to say in what we wanted to do in today's show is talk about the need as Christians to be courageous in this area, to sacrifice of yourself, your time, your gifts, your talents, everything to serve these children.

01:08:12

Because, you know, this is, his story is an amazing story. It really is. I mean, I didn't expect to be a part of something like this.

01:08:18

I never saw this coming. It is truly an amazing story. And it's all glory to God. Nothing, I mean, we're, you know, we're bystanders here.

01:08:26

Like, we're watching God do all this. And, you know, his story is a story of one child.

01:08:34

He's August, he's one. Over 60 million have been executed, over 60 million, and every single day more are being executed in our country.

01:08:46

That's what you're fighting for. Like, so I feel like, what a gift from God to have

01:08:51

August, to have flesh on the issue. Like when people hear this whole story and think about how precious he is and how amazing this is, he's one story.

01:09:00

Like, he's one. And it's happening every single day. So we don't have time for compromise.

01:09:06

We don't have time to delay justice because they're being taken from us every single day.

01:09:12

And so, brother and sister, you have to do something. Be like Tabitha.

01:09:17

Stand in the way. She didn't pull any punches. She told the truth the whole time. And she didn't just tell the truth, she made herself available.

01:09:24

Like, she made her house available, her food available, her funds available, her time available.

01:09:30

She gave all of herself to save one single life. And I will forever be indebted to her for that.

01:09:39

And so, brothers and sisters, next year, Luke, you're gonna have to help me with this because I forget a lot of the details.

01:09:46

Next quarter of next year, the legislative session, end abortion now, we have bills going into Colorado, Kentucky, Georgia, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Arizona.

01:10:05

We're helping in like, I think Texas we're helping with. South Dakota. Idaho. Idaho.

01:10:11

Arkansas. Arkansas. And so those are the bills we have. Next legislative session, we had commitments from the legislators to put bills in of equal protection and abolition.

01:10:20

I gotta say this. Listen, please, that's a lot to bite off. Maybe you have some idea of Apologia Studios and Apologia Church and end abortion now.

01:10:30

You know, we're this massive group of people with like massive funding or something like that. The truth of the matter is, is no, we're not a huge church by any means.

01:10:40

And we do not have the budget that these major organizations have. And guess what? Because of God's grace and because of the truth being proclaimed, we are now gonna punch a bigger hole in this issue than they ever have in 50 years of Roe versus Wade.

01:10:55

In the beginning of next legislative session, we've got bills of abolition and equal protection, criminalization going in across the

01:11:01

United States of America. And we need you with us. This is honestly, like Luke and I, we've been having conversations about this the last couple of weeks with our team.

01:11:10

This is honestly a plea to you. We need you to join with us. We can't work all these states by ourselves.

01:11:17

We can't. We need you. If you're in these states on the ground, we need you to message us.

01:11:22

We need you to let us know that you're ready to help and get other churches involved, that you're willing to be part of our ground team there in those states because we need you.

01:11:30

We cannot do this on our own. We just cannot. So we need you. If you're part of the EAN network, we need you to immediately get involved in these states, contact us, and say that you're available and you're ready to go.

01:11:41

We need you to join with us. We're putting together teams here to work with each state. We need you to give financially.

01:11:48

We put about $100 ,000 last year into Louisiana. Yeah, one state. It was unprecedented what took place in Louisiana.

01:11:55

It was the first time since Roe v. Wade where it got to the hearing, passed the hearing, onto the floor for a vote as an abolition bill, equal protection.

01:12:03

It was massive. It was all over the national media. It freaked out everybody, including members of the

01:12:08

Supreme Court, I might add, and it was a very big deal. It caused the entire pro -life industry and establishment to respond and to put their cards on the table about what they actually believe.

01:12:18

It was a big deal. It was well worth every single penny that was spent. It spurred on all the rest of these.

01:12:24

So all the bills going in next legislative session are in many ways because of what happened in Louisiana, but guess how much it cost?

01:12:30

About $100 ,000, probably a little bit more. And so we need you. We desperately need you.

01:12:36

The churches that we're raising up, we don't charge them anything. We don't ask for a thing from them. We raise them up. We train them for free. We give everything away to them and we go to all these states for the hearings and the bills.

01:12:46

We have to pay for the bills, oftentimes, to get written for those states. It's just not cheap. When you have a constitutional attorney writing up the legislation, he has to go into that state, all of its code, and make sure he writes it in a way that cannot fail.

01:13:00

Was it $3 ,000, I think? Something like that? Yeah, it's about $3 ,000 per state. It's unreal.

01:13:06

So we're just telling the truth. Look, we're not hiding anything. We want to never do this ministry again. We want it to be over, wash our hands of it, walk away from it.

01:13:13

But now, in the midst of it, to do it, it takes money. We need you to help us. So go to endabortionnow .com to give and to be a partner with us.

01:13:21

If you're in these states, we need you to immediately contact us and let us know. I'm willing to help. I'm there. And so, next quarter of next year, get ready.

01:13:30

Get ready. It's a very big moment and very big deal. And it's a move towards actual justice for these pre -born children.

01:13:37

I thought we could do a show today where we just sort of emphasize end of year.

01:13:43

We're going into next year. Here's what God's given to us. We could do that, but I thought, how perfect is it that this is happening in the midst of Augustine's birthday because his story is won.

01:13:52

So the whole reason I wanted to share that story with you today was just to tell you, all glory to God. Look what he did. Isn't that incredible? But it's really to emphasize this.

01:13:59

He's won. He's won story out of millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of children who were executed.

01:14:05

He's just won and it's still happening. Roe versus Wade did not stop the issue it's still happening everywhere.

01:14:12

We don't have justice established. I think what's probably worrying me the most, it's troubling me the most, is

01:14:18

I feel like the Christian community thinks well Roe's out of the way, we're good to go. No. Like the fight has literally just begun because now the obstacle is out of the way that was causing people fear and cowardice.

01:14:30

Now it's out of the way. So next year, first legislative session, get ready. We have a lot going on and we need you to partner with us.

01:14:37

If there's someone listening right now, God's blessed you with businesses and you're super wealthy and you can give.

01:14:45

We don't need your money for any other ministry. We just want it for End Abortion Now so we can accomplish this. We need help.

01:14:51

We need help. And so if you have the ability to give, please give right now at endabortionnow .com. And again, please partner with us in all these states.

01:14:59

We desperately need you. Super chats quickly. I will just try to... Okay. Thank you to Levi, Banish the

01:15:08

Shadow, and Jesse D. Phillips. How do I find the super chats on here?

01:15:13

Can I just pop right back to them? Okay. There you go. Jesse, thank you for that verse, man.

01:15:19

Psalm 139 .13. For you for my inward parts, you knitted me together in my mother's womb. And Banish the

01:15:25

Shadow. Ironically, preventing the murder would fix the groundwater anyways.

01:15:30

Very good, Banish. I'm glad you see that. If you just end it, you don't have to worry about the groundwater problem.

01:15:36

Thank you to Levi. Keep it up, y 'all. To the glory of God. Amen. Thank you guys so much. We love you. We're grateful for each and every one of you guys who's praying for us and a part of this ministry with us.

01:15:45

Thank you for being with us all through 2022. Luke and Joy, do you want to end with any thoughts? Merry Christmas to you and Happy New Year in jail.

01:15:54

Go on home. They're waiting for you. Same. And do the right thing even if it's hard.

01:16:03

Yes. Amen. Gabe, you got to kick music up here. Oh, we found some.

01:16:09

There we go. Oh. It's Christmas trap music.

01:16:14

Okay. I feel trapped. Trappy Christmas. And divorcetonow .com is where you go.