Bloody Ohio and Cowardly Pastors and Politicians

The Greatest Commandment and the Call to Love God Fully

When the scribes and Pharisees asked our Lord about the greatest commandment, He replied, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.

So, why do we hear some of today's most prominent pastors saying things like this?

It had everything to do with how we talk about the Bible, and specifically, along with that, what we point to as the foundation of faith, which for most Christians, unfortunately, is the Bible.

We need to do better. We need to love God with all our hearts, and stand unashamedly on the rock of his way. We need to love the Lord with all of our souls, and respond to the worldview issues of our day with the wisdom and discernment that comes only from Him.

We need to love the Lord with our minds, and understand the calling of God's people in every area of life in God's world. We need to love the Lord our God with all our strength, and face the work of building a life-giving, God-honoring culture.

Join us for 10 days at the Runner Academy for Cultural Leadership, as we consider how the gospel influences all of life and culture, and the role that we have to play in applying foundational Christian thinking to every area of life.

Non-rockabotas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it. Are you gonna bark all day, little doggie, or are you gonna bite? We're being delusional.

Delusional? Yeah, delusional is okay in your worldview. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional. So you calling me delusional using your worldview is perfectly okay.

It doesn't really hurt.

Desperate times call for faithful men, and not for careful men. The careful men come later, and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage. Go into all the world and make disciples.

Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives.

Right.

Don't go into the world and make homies.

Right.

Disciples.

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

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

Ezekiel's Prophecy Against the Bloody City

And the word of the Lord came to be saying, and you, son of man, will you judge? Will you judge the bloody city? Then declare to her all her abominations. You shall say, thus says the Lord God, a city that sheds blood in her midst, so that her time may come.

And that makes idols to defile herself. You have become guilty by the blood that you have shed and defiled by the idols that you have made. And you have brought your days near. The appointed time of your years has come.

Therefore, I have made you a reproach to the nations and a mockery to all the countries. Those who are near and those who are far from you will mock you. Your name is defiled. You are full of tumult. That would be Ezekiel 22, 1 through 5.

Good name.

Yes.

A prophetic witness there against the bloody city. It's what we need in our day.

True that. Or state, for that matter.

State. Nation.

Ohio's Abortion Ballot Measure and the Failure of the Pulpit

Welcome, everyone, to Apologia Radio. This is going to be an interesting show because we have a special guest zooming in today.

A special guest.

A special guest.

That you might know.

That you might know. What up? We got Zachary Conover, DOC.

Good to be here.

What was the name we came up with last week?

Oh, I don't remember.

Little Zeezers.

Oh, yeah. Little Zeezers.

Little Zeezers.

Merry Christmas, everyone. I'm going to go ahead and bring in our special guest, who you may be familiar with. It's the ninja, Jeffrey Durbin.

What's up, guys? What's up?

Go ahead, sorry.

Coming at you from an undisclosed location somewhere in the United States of America. I'm not allowed to say where I'm at.

Yeah, I was going to say, if you think you heard us before say where he's at, you did not hear us.

You know, this has got to be a first, right? This has got to be a first to have the host of Apologia Radio brought in as a guest.

Yes, I've zoomed in before, but Jeff has not. So, this is a first.

Yeah, this is my first time.

First time for everything.

Old snow beard. Having a crazy last five weeks of my life dealing with a gift and a blessing of adopting two twins, but that's the farthest I can go in saying anything right now because of rules.

Right.

So, yeah, here I am. But this particular broadcast is extremely important. We are at an important, critical time in the fight to establish justice for the pre-born. Of course, with Dobbs, the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe versus Wade, it exposed so much of what was wrong, where the failures were with the pro-life establishment, the pro-life industry.

It exposed the inconsistency of their doctrinal position. And we knew that this sort of thing was coming when the Supreme Court washed their hands of the situation and said to the states, you decide if you want to kill them.

We knew this was coming. And so abortion, this is really important for everyone to hear, abortion is not banned in any state in the United States of America, even with trigger laws, even with some states like Louisiana with their abortion mills shut down.

Abortions are on the rise, and that is fundamentally because, of course, sin, judgment, God turning people over to their sin, but also because of a compromised and cowardly pro-life establishment, a non-Christian pro-life industry that refuses to fight this fight under the banner of Christ and God's word.

They refuse to fight this fight consistently with their own presuppositions. They say they believe that human beings in the womb are human from fertilization, all life is sacred, but they do not actually believe that because they want mothers to be able to kill their children in the womb willfully with impunity and immunity.

And now it's all being exposed, and the inconsistency of their position and the compromise of their position is being demonstrated so vividly in what just happened in Ohio. So I'm not sure if you guys want to bring everyone into that conversation within any news clips or anything like that at all, but we need to let people know what just happened in Ohio.

So maybe go ahead and start that.

I got a few clips. We should probably—.

Yeah, let's roll those. Let's set the stage.

We should probably thank our sponsors first before we jump into this because we'll forget.

Well, we'll get to that in the middle. We can jump into that. Yeah, let's go ahead and roll those.

All right, I have several pulled up. Did you have one specifically—.

No, let's just bring that. I'll let everyone know. So basically—and we'll show you some clips to see the reality of the situation. Basically, Ohio is one of the unique places where, with a ballot measure, you can actually change the state's constitution.

And so a number of pro-abort groups work to get a ballot measure in and to be voted on. And that ballot measure—essentially, there's some vague kind of language in it. It is interesting that they refer to what's in the womb as the unborn child.

I think—what is it, three times, Zach? Is it three times or two times?

I actually, when I went back through it, I counted four, I believe. So it's actually four times. I have the text right here, and I'm showing, yeah, that it has that many instances where it actually refers to an unborn child.

That's the language in the ballot itself.

There you go. So not even hiding their hand any longer. They're just—they're wide open. So unborn child. And essentially what this ballot measure did is—or what it was wanting to accomplish was to allow the bloodshed of a child in the womb all the way up until essentially nine months birth.

And the language there is really interesting. It's until viability, but the physician can determine whether or not it's viable. And then also if the physician determines, yes, it is still viable, but—.

But the woman's life and health also.

Life and health. And then, of course, big question mark over the word health of the mother. Aside from life of the mother, meaning what? Mental health? Is this going to disrupt her ability to be a happy soul?

Is she going to lose sleep over this? Is this going to make her—is this going to damage her mental health? So there's a number of concessions in there that essentially—it just tells you exactly what the pro-aborts have wanted all along.

And that's the ability for a mother to murder her child in the womb throughout all stages of pregnancy. This is the full-on courageous display of their worldview. And we're going to get into the distinction between the pro-aborts and their massive courage and the consistency with their worldview.

And these cowardly pastors and cowardly politicians that want to just cede ground to the enemy. They want to not say what their commitments really are. They don't want to be consistent. They want to play politics.

They want to do pragmatism. But yeah, let's roll the clip of what just took place in Ohio. Because the ballot measure passed, I don't think the vote was close really at all. I think they smoked the pro-lifers and they exposed the weakness of the Christian church and the devastating weakness of the Christian pulpit.

Yeah, I believe it was 55 to 45. So here, Gabe, if you want to pull that up. This is a clip from The Guardian. I'll go ahead and play this right now.

Abortion is healthcare. And abortion access is the law of the land in Ohio. This campaign came together last year because we lost access. Because there was a dangerous abortion ban in Ohio. Patients and families were being harmed and lives were put at risk.

There was no choice. We had to win. We had to end the ban.

We're going to bed knowing that we own our own bodies. Thanks to the work that you have all done.

So, just a couple quick thoughts in there. I don't know if you could see that or not, Jeff. One, the lady was up there holding her child, celebrating.

Small child.

Yeah, small child, celebrating that. But, obviously, there's a number of talking points. We have more clips we can play, too. But a number of talking points there.

Yeah.

No, you go ahead.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

No, I was just going to say there, I mean, you know, talking about people's lives being in danger.

Yeah.

Obviously not considering the lives of the baby in the womb. And then the last lady there saying that we have control over our own bodies.

Sure.

What about the babies in the womb? Do they have control over their bodies?

Sure, sure.

Yeah.

You know what it reminded me when I watched a clip like this, which is becoming more and more common in different nations, it reminded me of the first time we saw this in the nation of Ireland.

Yep.

In the Republic. And when this happened, you had these clips rolling in of the women just engaging in celebration.

Yeah.

Over the fact that now, you know, they can, you know, with no repercussions whatsoever, in a nation like Ireland where this was illegal and it even carried a prison sentence up to a certain extent. And then when it was repealed, the Eighth Amendment, there was this same kind of celebratory extravagance, you know, celebrating at the fact that they can now kill their babies, you know, that they can control their own futures.

And if a child gets in the way of, you know, Suzy's education or her career, then she can bypass that decision that she made in order to delete the consequence of that choice. So what we're seeing now in, you know, in our nation, I mean, this is not across the seas.

This is in our nation now. This is happening. And you notice one thing about that clip. I wouldn't exactly call any of the women jumping up and down and celebrating and, you know, smiles and tears streaming down their face because they can do this now.

It would be very hard to classify a woman that is that hard-hearted towards human life as a victim, which seems to be the common thing that we continue to hear from those in the pro-life establishment, the pro-life movement.

And now you have ample evidence in which, with a ballot initiative like this, in which the phrase unborn child itself is placed in the text no less than four times. They are going into the situation eyes wide open to the reality.

I mean, people have talked about the fact that, you know, well, why don't we put a picture of an aborted baby in here so they really know what they're voting for? And it's like, well, of course, we're all for putting before the conscience what abortion actually is.

But they go into this eyes wide open knowing. They knew before they voted what they were doing. It's not that they didn't know. It's how much more of the level of judgment upon our nation and upon the state of Ohio for shedding innocent blood now walking into this full-throated eyes wide open, knowing exactly what they're doing.

There is no way that anyone ever could, but especially now, claim that these women don't know what they're doing. I just say that. Let's just start off with that point.

Exactly. And I'll just say quickly, and then Jeff, I'll let you go. I just, just you guys, I don't know if you saw this. Surgical abortions just started this week in Northern Ireland. So our friends up there are fighting that now.

And in both places, what we're talking about here is the rule of law being circumvented by a popular vote.

Well, in Northern Ireland, it was just Parliament.

Yeah. And they just threw it on them and said, here it is. And they put it up to a vote. And that's what you get. You get moral anarchy.

Yep. But go ahead, Jeff.

Yeah. And hopefully, hopefully everyone can see the slippery form of reasoning that that woman engages in. The tugging on the emotions, the lying about language when she says lives were at risk. It's like, no, in abortion, every single time lives are at risk and lives are lost in abortion.

So it's just a manipulative, slippery, slimy way of speaking that these people use. That Christians just need to call out with boldness and confidence. No, lives are always at risk in abortion. So you're arguing for more lives to always be at risk.

And then, of course, the slipperier form of reasoning, like now we actually have control or own our own bodies. So you're arguing for bodily autonomy. You think this is going to add bodily autonomy in the state of Ohio.

No, this destroys bodily autonomy because the body inside of the womb of the mother is disregarded and has no bodily autonomy. So this slippery form of reasoning saying I want bodily autonomy, but not for the child.

It's just abject selfishness. That's what our nation is dealing with right now. And the only answer I just want to say this, look, there's blood guiltiness. There has been for a long time in this nation.

But now you see it being ramped up in something like this ballot measure in the state of Ohio. And the look, this where we're at, we have I feel like it's wrong to say we're at a turning point. But this is a new turning point.

We've been at a turning point for a long time in this nation in terms of national sin and the need for repentance, the dishonoring of Christ and God's word. But we are at a turning point here where the church and specifically pastors need to wake up and repent of their apathy.

They need to wake up and be courageous and start boldly preaching the word of God, the kingship of Christ, the lordship of Christ in the public square. My question and look, I always want to turn the finger back to myself and say, where am I feeling as a pastor?

Where am I feeling as a father? Where am I feeling as a husband? And I think that the first thing we need to take note of here is that the primary failure other than what we know Scripture is descriptive about in terms of sin, the judgment of God, God turning people over to their sin.

Ohio's under judgment. Our nation is under judgment. But we think about like, OK, what's like a what's a what's a means kind of factor that gets us to this place? And we need to be honest with the fact that it is the pulpit in this nation.

It is the pulpit in the state of Ohio that is an abysmal failure. Now, look, I'm speaking as a pastor who's behind the pulpit. There are, I know, faithful pastors out there. But we need to say that generally and I think even more than generally, the majority of the pulpits in this nation are compromised.

They are not faithful pulpits. They do not bring the word faithfully to their congregations or to this culture. And so if we want to actually say, who do we point the finger at first? We need to point the finger at the pastors in the state of Ohio.

They did not approach this issue the way they were called to as prophets in the state of Ohio. They should have been the ones who were leading their people in the in the public square, confronting this as wickedness and murderous and sin.

They should have been calling out in the city gates in the state of Ohio, wherever they were, and they were not there. And I'm not saying I'm not saying that there were not faithful pastors in the state of Ohio.

There are. But this is we have to identify the central issue. The people of God are under under shepherds. They are following their lead. And so these under shepherds in the state of Ohio need to repent and they need to do what's right before God for the sake of these children.

It's really interesting, too, because this issue of compromise and cowardice is really the main thing that we need to get over. Other than, of course, you know, by what standard and by what authority that being the word of God and the authority of Christ, because the compromise in the pulpit is the same compromise that's happening in the politicians.

And it's it's important to note that we had a bill of equal protection set to go into the state of Ohio. And what people need to understand is that that bill of equal protection that would have abolished abortion in the state of Ohio was actually worked against by the pro-life establishment and the pro-life politicians.

They influenced to try to get that bill to not go in. They fought because their reasoning was, if we do this bill of equal protection and abolition, it's going to be such a frenzy and it'll cause so many problems for reelection or the ballot measure itself.

Think about what they were saying. They were saying, if you go for what you actually believe in what's right before God and for these children, then it's going to disrupt our ability to overcome the ballot measure.

And then lo and behold, didn't matter what measure goes in anyways. And you guys are standing there looking like a bunch of compromisers and cowards, which you are. And what's interesting is that you don't see the kind of compromise that is in the pro-life establishment and pro-life legislators.

You don't see that kind of compromise over with the pro-aborts. What are they saying? They're saying, this is my worldview. This is my right to murder my child. This is right. I'm going to fight. I'm going to go the whole way with my worldview.

And then what's interesting is that the bloodshed that follows that is going to be undeniably horrific. But the pro-life establishment and pro-life politicians are such cowards and are so compromised that they just allow it to happen on their watch, and they're so afraid to simply go for what is right before God.

They're always saying things like, well, if we go for a total abortion ban, it's going to affect our ability to be reelected again. And what I want to say to people who say that, and Megyn Kelly was just saying that in a clip yesterday in response to people saying, we need to go for equal protection.

We need just to end this thing. And she's like, oh, it's going to ruin politics and our ability to get reelected, and it's so foolish. It's like if there was a trophy, if there was a trophy for a lack of faith and trust in God, if there was a trophy for disobedience before God, you people deserve the biggest one.

And the truth of the matter is, the truth of the matter is, is this injustice of child sacrifice exists today because, not because of numbers. We've got enough people who profess faith in Jesus. We've got enough pro-life legislators who profess to be pro-life.

This injustice continues because of compromise and cowardice. That's why we're here. There is unfaithfulness before God, and we are going to still get our teeth kicked in everywhere until the church rises up.

And I mean specifically men of God and pastors who will rise up against this and speak the truth. That's why we're where we're at. And I want to just say one more thing here and kick it back to you guys.

The only way to overcome what is happening in Ohio right now is equal protection. It's the only way. No more bills of partiality. No more compromise. No more inconsistency. You will not abolish or end abortion until you stand for what Scripture calls you to stand for, and that is equal protections.

No equal weights and measures. No partiality. That's a sin before God, and we are failing. We've been failing because we are trying to end sin, sinfully. That's the issue. We're trying to end sin, sinfully, and God's not going to bless it.

I am on fire because we're at the turning point where this is the moment where the church needs to wake up. This is a problem of the church. If there is decay and darkness around us, we already know our vocation.

We know our marching orders. It's you're the salt and you're the light. So if it's decaying, then you are not salty. And if it's dark, then you are not being light. We have too many professing Christians in this nation for this nation to be overcome with this injustice.

The problem is in the pulpits. The problem is in the churches. We need to repent of our sin, repent of our apathy, and we need to get out into the world willing to lay our lives down for the sake of the other.

That's the Christian message, essentially, in terms of ethically. It's my life for yours. We get that from our Savior. My life for yours. And there is so much compromise, cowardice, and selfishness that we love our lives too much.

And I'll end with this. I very recently, fairly recently, got to witness a premature baby. And it was astonishing what I got to witness with a premature baby that would be a candidate now in Ohio to be slaughtered in the womb.

And I witnessed a premature baby that was struggling intensely to live. And I witnessed 10 surgeons, nurses, respiratory people, like, literally, like, surrounding, meticulous, watching every detail, trying to save this life.

Literally, around the clock, 24 hours a day, literally, like, every five minutes, checking everything. Is everything okay? Is everything safe? What can we do to fix this? How can we save this life? And it's amazing because that shocking inconsistency is so apparent to me that on the one hand, you've got people trying to preserve life and doing everything they can to preserve life for this premature child.

And on the other hand, you've got a state by legal decree saying, kill them, kill them. And it's such an amazing inconsistency. It is so treacherous. It is so evil. And it is high time the church stands under the banner of Christ's authority and lordship and calls this nation, our cities, these states to repent.

And specifically, pastors, brothers, I'm looking you eye to eye right now. You have to go to your legislators and say, I demand that you obey God and you stop the slaughter and you give equal protection to every human.

That is the only answer. Pastors, make the time to be a prophetic witness in your area. Ohio pastors, repent in sackcloth and ashes and get to work. We do have a bill, potentially, in Ohio of equal protection.

You need to do everything you can to get behind that bill. It's not my bill. It's not our bill in terms of apology of church. It's the church's collective bill. And we need to work on it together. So we still can't overcome this in Ohio.

We can.

But only with equal protection. It's the only way.

The Need for Prophetic Witness and Equal Protection

Yeah, absolutely. And you just mentioned the verse I was going to say, Proverbs 29, 18, where there's no prophetic vision, the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law. And this is precisely what we're witnessing.

There's been no prophetic witness, no prophetic vision from the pulpits, and the people have cast off restraint. We just literally watched a video of that. And so, and again, I know that there's faithful, like Jeff said, there's definitely faithful pastors.

But, like, I happen to know that there's faithful pastors from neighboring states who were there leading the charge against us that aren't from Ohio.

They were doing their work for them.

Yeah, exactly. And so I, so Zach and I got invited. I'm not going to, I don't think I'm willing to mention this person's name yet because I'm trying to get face-to-face with them and give them a chance.

But Zach and I were invited to.

We did.

A pastor's luncheon last week that was hosted by a very, very popular conservative talking head, someone who's right about most things. And him and the pastor that were there, they were hosting this event, did a phenomenal job of laying out.

A great case for theonomy.

Yes.

I mean, it was fantastic. We were like, wow, I'm actually really impressed by that.

Yeah.

And then we were allowed to ask questions. And Zach stood up and asked about equal protection. And I'll just say that we were very much astonished.

Yeah, we were disappointed.

By the response from this man. And his response was basically like, well, now I can understand why the pro-life movement would not like what you have to say. And he went on to say that women are victims.

There you go.

And it got worse because it wasn't just him.

Put it to the audience.

He put it to the audience.

Which was comprised primarily of pastors and their wives.

It was a pastor's luncheon. Yes, from Arizona. So it was all Arizona pastors and their wives. And there was about 150 people in there. And the overwhelming response was that they would agree with this man.

That women don't know what they're doing.

And he specifically even asked the women in the audience, what would you think? And they were all like, oh, yeah, they'd be victims. And we were like, oh, my goodness.

Yeah, and I'll tell you for sure, none of those pastors who were agreeing with that, A, know their Bibles, and B, stand outside of abortion mills.

That's exactly right. That's what I said.

I was the only one who issued to them.

Yep, you're exactly right.

The only way they can hold that position is because they, like I said, A, don't know the scriptures well enough to be able to define that. And B, they don't stand outside of abortion mills where mothers are bragging on their abortions.

They're saying, I have a right to kill my child. I know it's murder. I can kill my child if I want to. And so this doctrinal position that the pro-life establishment has fed to the masses is so destructive.

And that leads me to a very important thing you can help us with right now. If you are saying, what can I do right now? Well, first and foremost, put the word of God on your lips and make sure that you're using it everywhere you can.

The second thing we need you to do, if you would join together with us, the heartbeat of the failure is the pro-life establishment's heresy, their doctrinal position, which leads to more injustice, that the woman who willfully kills her child in the womb is to be protected.

They want immunity and impunity for her. They want to make sure she never is seen as guilty, that she's a victim herself. Scripture has a lot to say about that. Proverbs 17, 15 says that the person who acquits the guilty and the one who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to God.

And so it's an abomination before God to acquit the guilty. She is guilty of taking the life of her child. The Christian church has always taught that those who engage in the issue of abortion are guilty of murder and they need the forgiveness of Christ.

The pro-life establishment robs her of the gospel and says she does not need the forgiveness of Christ for her abortion. And so there's no freedom or there's no forgiveness there. That in itself should be enough to reject that position.

But the pro-life establishment, because they believe this, that she should be able to kill her child with impunity and with immunity, they actually work against our bills to actually abolish and equally protect these children.

So the heart of the issue, the fatal flaw of the pro-life establishment is this doctrinal position that she should never be seen as guilty for taking the life of her child, which is why even in a state like Louisiana with a trigger law and them killing our bill of equal protection, abortions are on the rise in Louisiana with no abortion mills.

How's that happen? It happens with the imprimatur, the signature, the approval of the establishment. They say that she should never, ever be seen as guilty. And so we are dropping a mini documentary expose on Good Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.

I want to encourage you all to help us.

Black Friday.

Black Friday. Black Friday. An appropriate name over the day. We're releasing this very dark information. Black Friday. We are going to release as many documentary where we are going to give to you the story of the fundamental issue that keeps this issue alive.

I know that a lot of times you have disputes over. Well, you know, it should be worked towards, quote unquote, incremental bills and just take our wins and make our way to the end of abortion. I would call them bills of partiality.

They are sinful before God. They are dishonoring to God. That's an important discussion, but it actually distracts us from the main issue. The main issue is it doesn't matter about these bills of partiality because you can get to the very end of them.

And the pro-life establishment, the industry is going to say, yeah, but we don't actually want equal protection. We don't want this to be fully abolished for the woman and for there to be any criminal penalty.

So that's the fundamental issue. We have this mini documentary released Black Friday right here on Apologia Studios. Here's what we need you to do. Share it. Share it. Share it. Share it. We need pastors to get this information.

We need churches to get this information because we have right now, prospectively, 18 bills of equal protection and abolition happening across the country next session. Every single one of those bills is going to die either in committee or on the floor because of the opposition of the pro-life establishment.

They are opposed to the scriptures. They are opposed to consistency on this issue. They want abortion to be legal for the woman. They do not want her ever to be punished. And so every bill we have going forward is going to die without you, the church, without us, the church.

And so we need you to share that. Share it with every pastor you know. Share it with everyone in your congregation. Black Friday, our mini documentary expose.