Next Week With Jeff Durbin: How to end it.

The Mission in Kauai and Spiritual Conflict

All right, guys, welcome back to Next Week with Jeff Durbin. I'm Jeff Durbin, the co-owner of The Ninja. That's Luke the Bear right there.

What's up?

What's up?

Joy the Girl.

Hello.

And that is Zach Conover. He is the director of communications for End Abortion Now, and he has, of course, the biggest cup of all of us.

Yes, sir.

This is a pride issue for you. You came on the show, you decided you had to have a big cup.

Is that where you store my hamburgers?

My fries?

No, actually.

This just does a good job of keeping me hydrated.

That's all.

Oh, right on.

Nothing special.

Okay. All right.

So...

No big deal.

It looks normal in my hands.

A lot of stuff been happening lately. You recently got back from the island of Kauai doing a mission in Kauai. How was that?

Oh, man. I mean, where do you even begin? Kauai is such a unique place. Honestly, people just don't realize what it's like to try and engage people there, what the culture's like, how different it is, how difficult it is.

So, to be a part of the church plant there, to go there to preach, to offer support to the team, and then just to come into conflict with a high concentration of a lot of spiritual stuff going on in that region.

A lot of occultism.

Occultism. Cult.

You know, all the cults are just in a highly concentrated area, so it makes for interesting outreaches, a lot of conflict. You feel like the scriptures really come to life in a lot of ways that you haven't experienced.

Before. Yeah.

So, that was encouraging after the initial shock of coming into contact with that, dark things going on there, but after you realize what's happening, go back to the Word of God, find out that without conflict, I mean, there's no growth, but there's a level of confirmation within your calling as a Christian when you come up against that, and you meet that, and you're there with the Word of God, and God supplies the power by His Spirit to work through.

You.

So, that's what I feel like. He did in a big, big way for us, so we're very excited about.

What God's doing.

End Abortion Now and the Growth of the Church Network

So, we lost you. We lost you for about three weeks to send you on that mission to do work, and it's very, very hard to do that mission out there.

Very, very hard.

It's exhausting, and so you're back now, but a lot's been happening since you've been away across the country with what we're doing with End Abortion Now. The whole focus of next week with Jeff Durbin, this show is obviously to engage cultural issues, but the bottom line and foundation of this show and the purpose of it is to really engage the issue of abortion in a meaningful way, and to bring all of you with us.

Right now, we have over 300 churches, approximately 328 local churches.

328 local churches.

How many have we added since January?

A lot.

Yes.

We've had a ginormous push this year alone, and obviously, there's some things surrounding that, events, End Abortion Now, Babies Are Murdered Here, kind of getting into the mainstream conversation with things from friends that have just taken bold stands in getting it out there.

Now, we're seeing a lot, and it's from all over. It's not from any one area. I mean, all over the United States, more churches from Australia, awesome Praise God moment. While we were on Kauai, I got a word that End Abortion Now and the message made it to South Africa, and so South Africa, I mean, all these different places outside of just our sphere.

Was there a save in South Africa?

Yes. There was two children saved. As a result of that, and I have the same people emailing me today say, hey, what kind of equipment do you use out there? Can you help us with materials? What kind of microphone do you use?

Do you guys use cameras?

Send us that.

We want to know. Other people emailing us stuff about, hey, we want to begin the process of capturing the footage out there. What material, what equipment do you use?

By the way, now that you're on that subject, I want everyone to know right now a very important.

Thing.

We know that it has to be more than Apology of Church engaged in this cultural conversation with the gospel. It has to be the Church of Jesus Christ encompassing local churches across the world, and so what we felt led to do was to equip churches and get them ready for this fight to do what we're doing both, I'd say, at the Abortion Mill in the cultural conversation at large in the public square online with media ministry developed by these churches themselves and to engage at the legislature itself.

So one of the things that we promise for this year that is underway right now is that we are developing a curriculum that is going to be made available to all of our churches that are connected to us to actually help you to develop and create your own media ministry just like Apology of Church.

This isn't about us. We are one spoke in the wheel, and we are trying to get more spokes involved and turn that wheel, but it's interesting, so we're going to do that and make sure that's available to all the churches.

So you go to endabortionnow .com, get connected with your church. I wanted to say this quickly. We're not talking about 328 Christians across the country. We're talking about 328 local churches who are committed now to go and save lives and to follow under the banner of the gospel in conflict with abortion, the gospel, not pro-life narrative, not neutrality, but the Christian message in conflict with abortion.

That's what this is all about. But what is awesome, too, is it wasn't just South Africa. We also got a message from Northern Ireland that people who are connected to endabortionnow had a save in Southern Ireland.

And then I just got a message before the show started from a Christian in Australia who now his church is engaged in this, and he messaged me and said, hey, can you do a quick video to talk to my church?

I'm going to present it to my whole church on Sunday. So this is literally becoming a worldwide movement of the gospel in conflict with abortion, so you can do that right now. That's what we're here to talk about today and some more stuff.

Planned Parenthood, New York, and the Failure of Pro-Life Incrementalism

But let's go ahead and do some other things, some current events stuff.

What's up?

Well, this is directly related to abortion. So this is a story I just saw today. So the Democratic or Democratic led states are going to sue Donald Trump for blocking funds to Planned Parenthood. I don't know if you guys saw that.

That's so Washington, Oregon, Connecticut, New York and California. So, you know, whatever. They're ridiculous.

But, you know, you're going after their sacred right.

Yeah, exactly. So but there was specifically one quote I wanted to share that was crazy to me. So this was from Amanda Skinner, who is the president of Planned Parenthood of Southern New England. It's quite the title.

So she said, we have seen repeated efforts on the part of this administration to dismantle programs or put into place programs that harm people who are already the most marginalized in our society. So after answering that question, she then returned to work dismantling and harming the most marginalized people in our society.

Yeah, right. Right.

So that's I mean, that's what we're up against. I just when I just thought that I was like, that's crazy.

So it's interesting. We're in the middle of a very it's a hot moment, hotter than normal in terms of abortion in our country. And like the conflict that is going on to save the pre-born with what happened in New York and Governor Cuomo saying, no, you can kill them all the way up to birth.

Now, of course, we would say to those pro-lifers that are saying, oh, my goodness, how dare.

You?

What are you thinking? We would say, well, what's the difference, friends, between 40 and the 25, 20 and everything we're talking about human beings here. So why are you so up in arms? This is just consistency.

We should already be horrified.

We should already be horrified and be just as upset. Like we should have been the whole time.

But I'm grateful. But I'm grateful that your eyes are now shocked.

Yes.

My hope is that God's using this next level of judgment.

Yes.

To, you know, to light a fire under the under the church, our culture to actually be outraged because, like you said, we as a whole haven't been that outraged.

Well, it's really interesting, too. It's that the people can say how horrible New York is and it is. It's evil.

It's awful.

Like how dare they do such a thing when it exposes that this is what they were going for all along. They were never neutral. This is what they want the whole time. But in terms of God and his providence, even in the midst of evil, God causes all things to work together for good.

And just in us and what's happening with us, when that all happened with Governor Cuomo and everything happening with John Speed closing a store in New York City and all the hubbub around that going around the country and all the major talk shows talking about that, we saw a massive push at end abortion.

Now, local churches signing up over 50. Yeah, probably signed up as a since since New York or about 50.

Yeah, I think within I mean, there was a time when I was just, you know, checking emails in Kauai going through that. And I realized I said I asked myself the question, well, how many churches have we had in the last week?

And I just checked to see how many was about 15 within the span of one week. And so just an unbelievable, like gravitational shift. And these are excited people, right? These are these are these are local churches, pastors, if not pastors, those under the care of their shepherds, really desiring to have a gospel centered answer to this great evil of our day.

So for us to be able to supply that to them is just humbling in so many ways that we have been used by God and his grace as a conduit now to plug in people to resources, training, gospel centered mindset to do this.

The Christian Worldview Against Abortion and the Republican Party's Compromise

You know, you mentioned New York. You mentioned the horror of what the Democratic Party has done. And really, it reveals that this was their plan all along. This was their mindset all along. And but on the other side of the coin, it becomes incumbent upon us as Christians to maintain the level of consistency towards the other side of the aisle, the party that needs to be defined by the very values that they proclaim to have, which is the Christian conservative party, the Republican Party.

Right. So while their proclamation may be Christian conservative with what they're saying, being consistent in pro-life action is another thing altogether. And so that only happens if you have the biblical world at your feet, informing your mindset of this because life beginning at conception, image of God, all that exists because of the Christian worldview.

And so it's up to us to be outraged completely at that astounding evil decree that you can kill a baby up to term. Right. That's astoundingly evil. But we have to be as hard, if not more hard on the party that has been silent in the face of this injustice and has not acted consistently to bring it to an end.

So with that, talk about the issue of like Oklahoma. I just go back from Oklahoma. There's a bill SB 13 in Oklahoma put in by Senator Joseph Silk, it's an abolition bill. It's a bill to abolish, to end, to criminalize once and for all consistency, no abortion, period.

You cannot do it. That's the human being. That's the image of God. You cannot murder a human being. You cannot take the life unjustly of another human being. So it's a consistent bill, SB 13. And the interesting thing is that in Oklahoma, it's a big time pro-life legislature and state.

And the greatest enemy, the greatest enemy to SB 13 in Oklahoma right now is not the pro-choicers. The greatest enemy to SB 13 in Oklahoma is Senator Smalley and men like him, who actually are Tony Lounger, the vice president of National Right to Life, who are working against this bill that would criminalize abortion.

They're saying, no, you don't pass that. And they want to work towards more incremental legislation. And they want to say, let's try to get Roe v. Wade to fall, which is a perverse way of looking at the law in the first place.

Not how our country works. Our founding documents say that it's Congress that creates law, not the Supreme Court. And so what we've done is we've yielded to this really perverse view of law, perspective of law, that isn't consistent with the Constitution.

And that's what they're saying is that we can't have SB 13 because the Supreme Court. We're fearful of these Supreme Court judges.

Why Incrementalism Protects Abortion and Repeal Is Needed

Yeah. And I hope people hear that and they're genuinely shocked that it's the pro-life party that's inhibiting this from going through. I hope when people hear that, it genuinely shocks you because then we begin to wake up and see where the true compromise has been in this and what has kept abortion legal for the last 46 years.

Obviously, we know that those who hate God, love death are going to push their agenda. We understand that. But to the side that is left with defending the pre-born and that ought to be doing something about it, to hear that they're actually standing against the very thing that would stop it in that state, that should jar us to the core and indicate in our minds that something's wrong.

Something's wrong about how we've approached this issue, how we fought it consistently as Christians. And what are we doing? And we need to do something different fast.

I was going to say that really, if you consider, like, so consider that the reason we're so horrified that a baby can be killed full term now is that in our minds always we've had things like 16 weeks, heartbeat bill, this and this, blah, blah, blah.

So the point is, is babies have been dying the whole time. But the reason why it's shocking us now is because pro-lifers have been putting legislation in that actually protects the killing of babies up until a certain point.

It's just that now that legislation didn't work in New York. And so like the only reason any part of you would think, well, maybe it's OK to kill a baby after they're this many weeks is because someone came in and said, well, let's fight for this many weeks at least.

Right. But the whole time babies have been dying. Yeah. So in a weird way, like, we're shocked because of the pro-life party.

Right. That's a rough way to put that.

And those kinds of things affirm the legitimacy of Roe when you define it like that, which is the problem altogether. Because as you said, it's not it's an immoral court opinion. It's not a law. And so when you define this debate on the terms of the enemy, you're giving credence to that a group of men or women, five men or women, to be specific, can dictate what morality is and can redefine the very nature and fabric of what it means to be human.

Right. And so, yeah, we're not being ruled as as communities or states or republic or even a constitution or being actually the ultimate voice of the god of our system today is five men or women in the Supreme Court.

Right. And it's an endless voice of God.

It's an endless hamster wheel because who can get the most votes to get the most butts in the seats in order to dictate the consensus of the people? Right. Right. That's an endless fight. I don't want to fight anymore.

Right. I don't want to be a part of because it's not it's not just the issue of abortion. Right. What did we just deal with a couple of years ago? And now we're feeling all the effects of now we dealt with the Obergefell.

This is right. And marriage.

What happened there is another defining moment is that our country has now gone into the position where we say that the ultimate voice of the god of our system is this Supreme Court. These black robes, these five judges, male or female.

That's the voice of the god of our system. It's not the people. It's not a republic. It's not a constitution anymore. It's not even democracy. It's the voice of the god is the black robes at the Supreme Court.

And if we can finally come to terms with that and face that as a reality, that that's what we are now is the voice of the god of the system is the five black robes in Washington, D .C. Then we can actually start to resist in a very consistent way.

And that starts with the kind of thing we're talking about when we talk about interposition. So like what we argue in terms of how we have to fight this is we have to fight as a Christians, Christians, Christians, Christians, not neutral Christians from a Christian worldview, saying things like sin, murder, repentance, telling the truth.

Right. And then we say there has to be something called interposition, which is, by the way, what our country was supposed to be about. Like we used to be called a republic. We were a republic and it wasn't a democracy.

It was a republic. There is a difference. And the reason we were a republic is it was the states that created the federal government. It wasn't the federal government that made the states. They didn't, by decree, say, I now give you existence.

You are the state of Virginia. Like the states and the colonies, states, they created, this is our thing. That's what they were saying. Like, this will be our thing. And we'll have this way that we can all manage this thing with this federal government.

But they never were saying, and now we bow to you. They were always, always in a place where they would say, we will interpose between you. If you get beastly and our people, we will always interpose, whether it was like, say, for example, the Fugitive Slave Act, when you had fugitive slaves.

Fantastic talk with Marcus Pittman before the city council. And that's one of the most important elements to bring up in this is when you talk about things like that. There's more than just that. But something like the Fugitive Slave Act is a fantastic example that our culture has to resonate, has to resonate with us.

When you talk about slaves escaping and a federal court saying, no, you have to give them back. And then a state saying, how about hashtag hell no? Yeah. Like, like, like that, like that kind of interposition is there's no way that's going to happen.

Why? Because what you just told me to do was unjust, wicked and sinful. And so, no. And we all look at that today and we go, look at that state being so just and so amazing. Put you right on. You had somebody that was in the right state of mind.

And then today, the only way that states are willing to do that kind of thing is when you have states going, well, they should be able to smoke up, right? Yeah. I mean, we should let them smoke up. Yeah.

Like, and so we go, well, we'll definitely let you guys smoke up and we won't listen to what they say about smoking up.

Or like New York, where they said, well, we're going to kill babies up the full term. Right. Same thing. But I would say we're in regards to the market that talk. Marcus gave. I don't know if he told you this.

Someone else that was with him was. I think you were there. He was he was talking to one of the councilmen or whatever. And I think the guy said that he his his job is to protect or to represent everyone equally.

Yeah. And I was like, no, no, no. That's not what that's not at all. Your your job is to represent the majority. But that's where it gets into this whole discussion of social justice and everything we've been talking about.

Like, you know, you're not you're not representing equally. You know, you represent the majority. And, you know, even in any more, it's more like they're representing the minority who's got the loudest voice.

Right. Right. And I love what they were demanding in that meeting that. Yeah. Batavia become a sanctuary city for the pre-born. Just like the Fugitive Slave Act, this is a safe place where you can come have refuge and we're not going to follow the federal court into their rebellion against God.

We're not going to follow them into disobedience to our rule of law. So why can't we adopt that same principle for the pre-born? I thought it was a brilliant point to make. And this has really become part and parcel to the message of end abortion.

Now, this year is engaging legislature, which is why we're going.

Why? Why? Because here's the thing. You might have a lot of people saying, man, across the country now, end abortion now. Apology of church started going to the legislature and we were filming it and then putting the word out and it started to inspire other Christians to go.

And you're starting to see people now going to their legislature and saying things like repent, uphold justice, image of God, sin. Jesus died for sinners and rose again for the dead. Believe in Jesus, turn away from this wicked sin.

You have people walk up to the legislature, preach the gospel and say, and stop murdering babies. Do your duty as magistrates and uphold it and uphold it because they're the image of God. Yeah. And you're having Christians across the country now all over.

I'm seeing videos like on a daily basis now, some new Christian, the one before the legislature to do that. So I would ask you, Zach, why are we doing that? Why are we taking the message of the Christian gospel and the biblical worldview to the legislature?

Isn't that supposed to be stuff for heaven one day? Like, why are we doing that here?

What's going on? And I said that in one of my city council talks. When I said I realize, honorable representatives, that it might seem strange to you to see a Christian standing on his principles in this kind of format.

I admit it might seem foreign to you because we've all been told that there's a supposed separation of church and state that we all have to abide by. And what I have to say makes no never mind if I come here quoting scripture to you.

That was one of the things I brought up in my talk. But the reason we do what we do, first and foremost, is government, every realm of authority, for that matter, must obey Christ, must submit to his sovereign lordship.

Says who?

The word of God itself.

Where?

Psalm 2 is a great example. I mean, if we could just camp out on that one verse right there. Yes. But I mean, Revelation, Jesus is the ruler of the kings on earth. So he has all authority over them. They must obey him.

But Psalm chapter 2 is obviously the premier text that we would go to to say, you know, why do the nations rage in the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth and the ruler set themselves against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, let us burst their bonds and cast away their cords from us.

That's what's happening right now in our nation. We have a squad of leaders who think that they are above the very word and law of God to determine in their own eyes what is right and what is wrong. And the message of Psalm chapter 2 is God has installed his king on Zion.

On his holy hill. And he has given that son the obedience of the nations. All the nations have to obey Jesus. And then there's a warning at the end of that that says, now kings be wise. Kiss the son, pay allegiance to him, pay homage to him.

Well, why would they do that? He's their boss. He gets to tell them what to do with their authority because the authority that they have is derivative of him. It is not exercised independently of his rulership, his lordship.

He gives it to them and they are ruling in the place of him, which means if they rule in a contradictory fashion to the way that he is prescribed, they're in sin. And if they're in sin, it's our job as the prophetic voice and witness to call them to repent and to obey and to establish justice for these image bearers of God.

But Romans 13 says to submit to your authorities.

Right.

Romans 13 says to submit to your authorities. And we do. And you can see that obviously in the talks that we give, we come very humbly. We come very respectfully of their authority. We say honorable representatives.

We honor your position. We believe it's ordained by God. But again, it's not my responsibility if you are enacting decrees that are in opposition or at variance with the law of God to follow you into that rebellion.

And so it calls them deacons.

That's right.

So the magistrates are to exercise the authority of God. That's what the office of king and governance in the nation of Israel, for example, was about those people that were put in positions of authority by God were exercising the authority and office of God.

They were representing him. And in any way, when they acted in a way that was contrary to that, they were called by the prophets to come back to the rule of law, which was the law word of God. And so in Romans 13, same example, they are God's deacon.

They are his servants. They're his deacon. Not any other God's servant. Right. They're not the servants of Demas. Right. They're the servants of of Jesus Christo. He is kurios, he is Lord. And so they must obey him.

And so that's why we go and we tell them. And so it's it's really a bottom an issue of Christ's authority. Does he have all authority even over the legislature?

And if our nation believes that it's appropriate to kill your children, if our nation believes that it's appropriate to look at a man and say she or to look at a woman and say he, if our nation gets to the point where we say mommy and mommy is a couple and that's fine and that's a marriage or daddy and daddy is a couple and that's fine or mommy and daddy and mommy and mommy and mommy, that's fine.

Just that's just as valid. And what is at issue here is not it's not just a it's not just a conflict between democratic ideals and Republican ideals and liberalism versus conservatism. What we're talking about is a problem of sin and fallenness that has infected the culture and there's darkness around.

And Jesus only gives that duty in terms of actual preservation and dispelling darkness to one institution in the entire Bible. And he doesn't give it to the magistrates. He gives it to the church to be the salt, which is the preservative agent to stop things from decay.

And he gives the church the duty to be the light to the culture. Right. And and that's I mean it's it's it's like you don't have to go far into your Bible to figure this stuff out. You don't have to be like a biblical scholar.

Like if you just want to read the New Testament you get five chapters into the book of Matthew and you're going to see Jesus in the most famous sermon in the history of the world saying what I just said that we're the salt and we're the light.

And he talks to his people about God's law and he says if you teach people to minimize even the least of these commandments you're going to be called least in the kingdom of.

Heaven.

Whoever does them and teaches them is going to be called great. So that's what we're supposed to be about in our culture. What do you think it is like honestly like I know we say sin and sin and sin and sin but like what what do you think it is that's keeping the evangelical church at large from actually engaging this issue in a meaningful way.

Like what do you think it is. We can't just say generally it's sin. We're all just sinners.

Like what is it.

What's what is it. Is it cowardice. Is it fear.

Is it.

Is it just idolatry. Is it selfishness. Is it. Is it a pride. Like what do you think. What do you think is the great resistor right now that we have to confront on ourselves as the church.

Bad Eschatology, the Kingdom of God, and the Image of God

I think it's bad eschatology.

OK.

What do you mean.

So you know we talk about this a lot but you know instead of thinking long term and being hopeful optimistic about about the future and about Christ's kingdom here on earth you know the church since the early 1900s maybe even back in the mid 1800s has been preoccupied with the.

Rapture.

And so instead of instead of engaging the culture we've we've we've retreated to within the four walls of the church right and taken the gospel with us and we've sat around and waited for the rapture and you know and let the culture go to hell because we haven't cared now.

No that doesn't mean that the Christians in the church haven't been concerned about people come to Christ and you know but it's it's a it's still a different perspective when you're when you're thinking long term and you're being proactive instead of retreating and being overly pietistic and hiding in our little bunkers.

You're really on to something there. I think amen to that bad eschatology bad view of the future but that stems from a bad view of the kingdom. Yeah first I think it's an aspect of a truncation of the gospel seeing it reduced to merely a message that gets people into heaven one day and it's about being justified by faith which is at the core of the gospel.

But if you don't have the reign of Christ if you don't have what it means to be an image bearer of God at the bottom of all that what does Christ save us from. He saves us from our sin but what does he restore us to.

We're redeemed to something we're redeemed to hold a particular office and that office is being his image bearer in the world which means to obey him and to promote what he promotes to be his echo in the world to be his ambassador in the world and Jesus you see this in his ministry he was absolutely consumed for doing the will of the father.

Why.

Because he's the perfect image of God. And so that is the office that he maintains and that's the example that he leaves on the earth to give us. And so you take an issue like abortion right. God is the only one in the scriptures with the prerogative to put his image in the world.

That's why he condemns the construction of false images as idolatry and God has already spoken on this matter and put his image in the world. It's you and me. And so we are him his way and we're to be faithful and to obedient as him as his ambassadors in this world and any construction of a false God a false image is idolatry because we're the image of God and he jealously guards over his image.

He jealously guards over his image and that's why we jealously guard these pre-born children. So we need to guard these babies because they're the image of God because God jealously guards over his image because people might say why are you so hung up on this issue.

Why are you so all about ending abortion and criminalizing this. Well I would say because it's a fundamental attack not just on the familial character and nature of God in the triune community but it's also an attack on his very plan of salvation because Jesus Christ restores us to the true image of God and to our true office and sinful fallen man that hates God cannot have that.

They would they want to image an idol and they want to worship themselves and be a false God or worship.

A false God.

But there's only one God. And so what Jesus does is he gives us back our humanity by saving us and by calling us to be on mission for him and to go about doing the kinds of things that we do. So the answer to the question why does the church struggle with this so much cowardice apathy all those things are true but they stem from a lack of understanding a lack of being gripped by this reality of the kingdom of God and what it means to be on mission as his ambassador as his image bearer because as we're told in scripture for those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son.

Right.

Jesus is the image of the invisible God. As we have borne the image of the man of dust we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man.

Right.

And so many so many passages just in the New Testament alone about us being restored to the true image bearers of God and what that means. And so truncation of the gospel lack of the understanding of the gospel of the kingdom and our office because if it just becomes about chilling out waiting for heaven then we would never do anything like this.