September 11, 2018 Show with Gerald T. Smith & Chris MacDowell on “Making Abortion Mill Evangelism a Grass Roots Ministry for Volunteers in the Local Church”

Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors, Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Matthew Henry said that in this passage, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour, and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions. Now here's.

Our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the.

Rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Tuesday on this 11th day of September 2018, and this is our first live program since returning from Jacksonville, Florida, and it was such a blessed time to be fellowshipping once again with my dear friend, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, and also to meet many brethren in Christ for the first time who were there at both the conference and the debate that he and Dr. Michael L. Brown participated in, and also to be reunited with old friends, two of which I have not seen since the early 1990s, Richie Saxon and his wife Patti.

Richie Saxon was once the pastor of Beth Yeshua House of Jesus in West Sayville, Long Island, and I developed a very strong friendship with him and have kind of lost contact after a while, after the mid -90s when he retired from ministry and went into secular work full time, and he moved to Jacksonville, Florida, and this is the first time that I have seen him since the early 1990s.

What a joy it was to fellowship with him and his wife in his home, and I just could go on and on about what a wonderful time I had in Florida, but I will do that at a later date, but today I'm delighted to have on the program for the first time ever on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Reginald T. Smith and Chris McDowell.

They are both deacons and leaders of the Pro-Life Ministry at Hope Reform Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island, New York, and today we are addressing Making Abortion Mill Evangelism a Grassroots Ministry for Volunteers in the Local Church, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you both for the first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Jerry Smith and Chris McDowell.

Thank you, and it's a pleasure to be here. I love really something special. Well, Jerry Smith and I go back many years. I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that I first met you and began fellowshipping with you after the merger of Calvary Baptist Church of Amityville and First Baptist Church of Merrick when we became Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island.

Is that true? Is that about when we met?

That is correct.

And then eventually you joined a sister church that we actually helped to plant, meaning Grace Reform Baptist Church of Long Island helped to plant Hope Reform Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island, New York, where you both are now deacons, and I had the privilege of meeting Chris.

I probably met him before this, but I met Chris McDowell in a more formal way of being introduced to him over lunch in New York City recently when we were all in attendance at an event that I orchestrated in New York City with Dr. Tony Costa of Toronto Baptist Seminary, where he was speaking on the effects of cultural Marxism on the church and society at the First Baptist Church of Manhattan, but I believe that was at least the first time we were introduced.

Am I right, Chris McDowell?

Yeah, that's the first time that we actually got to meet each other formally. We had probably seen each other a couple times with James White coming out to Long Island one time, and I think there might have been a debate some other time, but yeah.

And I also know that you, Chris, are a co-host of a podcast called Crown Covenant. If you could tell our listeners about that.

Yeah, me and two ideas out there and get people thinking in a biblical sort of way, a biblical worldview to every area of life. In a while, it's been kind of a touch and go. It's a lot of work to edit those things, but we took some of the ongoing issues of the day.

There was, we've talked about education, we've talked about politics, a number of different topics, and really just looked at what the Word of God had to say about it and try to give the people, you know, something to think about.

So we've enjoyed doing it. It's just been very busy. We haven't done it recently.

And I know that you also blog at whenyourise .net.

Yeah, that was something else I had started a few years ago, and again, I haven't updated it.

Recently. It's been very, very busy. All right, great. Well, Hope Reformed Baptist Church, just to let our listeners know, it is a confessional Reformed Baptist Church. It adheres to the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith as a faithful summary of what the scriptures teach on the most primary matters involving not only salvific issues, but also church polity and the ordinances and pastored by my dear friend of many years, Pastor Rich Jensen.

I knew Rich even before he was the pastor there. He was an associate pastor over at another Baptist church in Port Jefferson when I first met him. A retired homicide detective who became a pastor, and he has been a very valuable friend and brother to me for many years, and I'm so delighted that the Hope Reformed Baptist Church of Medford, Long Island is thriving.

In fact, are you still in Medford? Because I know that you just moved into your own building for the first time. I'm sorry, you guys were talking over each other. I'll let him go. Oh, tomorrow we signed the closing papers.

Oh, so you haven't actually moved into the building yet? Not yet. And where will that be? Where is the building? It will be in Coram. Okay. Okay. All righty. Well, tell us, I'll start with you, Jerry.

Tell us about why the pro-life movement began to become such an important movement to you and an issue to you that it moved from merely being an ideology that you strongly believed in, but became something where you put your money where your mouth was, and you began to actively be involved in abortion mill evangelism, along with Chris McDowell.

Tell us about your experience, Jerry.

We had an outreach to some of the abortion clinics in our area, and for me personally, it took on new meaning. The mothers, week after week, take notice. I started to strengthen my understanding of what life was about, you know, the sanctity of life.

Why was life so important, and why was it viewed in such a way that a mom is not an easy ministry? As we go there and we see, but when I dug into Scripture, the sanctity of life, I went back to Genesis, and, you know, through 28, for instance, and it said, and God made the beasts of the earth according to their kind, and the livestock according to their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind, and God thought that it was good, and then he said this, then he, and God said, let us make God, and then God said this, so God created man in his own image, and the image of God, male and female, he created them, and God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply the sea and over the birds.

So much more meaning to me, the sanctity of life. Who are we? And not only is he, and he's created that child in his image, in his likeness. You know, what is an unborn child? Is it a human? Is it a mere, that is not a human, but if that unborn, then don't just really human life, and is it sane?

That's what got me moving.

And Chris McDowell, tell us something about your journey. In fact, maybe even go back a little bit earlier. I'm just curious, because I don't know you, and I don't know your testimony, but were you always pro-life?

Was there a point in your life growing up, perhaps, where either you were indifferent, or you were strongly pro-choice? I have no idea. Why don't you tell us something about that?

Oh, well, I was born, you know, I was fortunate to be born into a Christian family, and, you know, grew up going to church, and having very conservative values, and, you know, well, I used to think it was pretty stereotypical nowadays, that the church seems to run the gamut, and there's a wide range of perspectives, and they're not always biblical.

I just, I think like most Christians, I was pro-life, and I voted pro-life, but I didn't think much about it beyond that. My thought was, you know, the right politicians, so they'll elect, you know, they'll appoint the right justices, and we'll one day see Roe versus Wade overturned, and that was the extent of it.

Then I became, in my biblical journey, came to finally grasp the beauty of the Reformed doctrines, and became Reformed Baptist, and I was starting to search out, you know, more information, you know, teachers, and podcasts, and sermons, and I came, and they were talking about their pro-life ministry, and our church was growing, and we were relatively new to the church.

We've been there a couple years, and the church is growing, and people, there were, I've got Washington Middle Ministry, in addition to other outreach efforts, and evangelism, and they were looking to, you know, see that happen again, and so we were talking about it, and we decided to do it, and it was a few years ago, in August, where there was like a nationwide protest at Planned Parenthood, and so that's when we first went out.

Abortion mills, one was a Planned Parenthood, one was a smaller one, just independently operated, and I had no idea what to expect. It was something that, you know, we know what's happening, but we don't generally think too much about it, and to see women going in, knowing what they were there for, when it finally hit home that this was going on every day, you know, thousands of children are being killed every day, and we just, all we're doing is voting and hoping, and, you know, I posted on Facebook a while back that I'd never seen a child saved from abortion through my voting efforts.

The first time I saw a child saved from abortion was when the church was out on the sidewalk, and calling out to the moms, and offering hope, and offering the gospel, and finally seeing, you know, some women start to turn away, to hear that message, and decide they couldn't go through with it, and actually leave the place, sparing their child, you know, and looking forward to their future family, rather than going through and executing their child.

That's when it really hit home for me, was once we actually got out there, and saw what was going on, then it became a passion, and it was just, there was no stopping, you know, being out there, so that we could be a voice for those who...

Yeah, you know,.

It's interesting, I think it's no mistake that we are conducting this interview today on September 11th. September 11th, to borrow a phrase from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was speaking about, obviously, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, who said this day will remain in infamy.

September 11th, obviously, remains in infamy, because nearly 3 ,000 people lost their lives on September 11th, due to the terrorist attacks, not only in New York City, at the World Trade Center, but at the Pentagon building in Washington DC, and a plane that was forced down by heroic passengers in Pennsylvania, but that was nearly 3 ,000 people, and the world, other than the terrorists themselves, and those who applaud what terrorists do, the world stood in shock, in horror, grieving, and expressing words of indescribable horror, and mourning, and compassion over that terrorist attack, or should I say, attacks plural, where 3 ,000 people approximately died, and yet many of those same people who would have, and are still, been horrified, and would still, to this very day, share their righteous indignation, if you will, over the wickedness of those terrorists that were involved in those terrorist attacks, many of those same people, just like the terrorists, applaud, and smile, and rejoice, and laugh, and mock, when they are considering a woman's so-called right to murder her baby, and as I said, nearly 3 ,000 people died on September 11th, 2001, approximately, according to the World Health Organization, approximately 125 ,000 babies are murdered every day, worldwide, in abortions, and so that puts a little perspective on something, when we think about how the world is still, at least those who are not terrorists, or those who are in agreement with them, the rest of us, the majority of the planet, still, when speaking of 9 -11, we still tend to speak reverently, with some kind of level of awe, and compassion, and yet today, we have people, we have comedians on television, on national television, making fun of women murdering their babies, and the liberals, and the feminists, do little to nothing in protest.

This is pretty disgusting, isn't it?

What life is, and he had a sermon that he talked about, and God's economy came out around when he, you know, what a people sow, that they will also speak of as a nation, uh, what we're doing is reaping violence in the world over again.

Nothing of it, yet, like you've said, 9 -11, or even by someone mistreating a puppy, or a kitten, yet we are not moved by the murder of children. The lies that have been told in society, that uh, that baby in the womb is a myth, it's not a baby, it's, and it's out of sight, and one of the things we need to gently educate, uh, whoever comes, you know, that this is not just a mere clump of cells, it's a human being.

Use one of the tracks by 180, uh, the 180 .com, the heart begins to beat, and we tell them it's beating in unison with yours, mom, and after 40 days, brain waves can be measured, and so on, and six weeks, the baby can be seen, you know, moving, and responding, and at eight weeks, sucking his thumb, and uh, 12 weeks, it has eyelids, unique, it has a DNA that will never be created again, and, and that this human life has everything it needs to grow and mature.

Yes, it's in the mother's womb, but it's an individual life, and a life plan that they have set out, or maybe they're, they're up against failure, too young, there's so many situations that occur, but one of the things that we try to offer them, we, we tell them, we have people who will adopt your baby, we'll come up alongside you, we'll support your baby, uh, we'll support you as you go through that, you don't murder, but the significance of what they're doing.

Now, does that mean all of them? Well, ironically,.

Ironically, uh, I know that you two were inspired, uh, to conduct, uh, this abortion mill evangelism ministry, you were inspired by the work in the same area, uh, that Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church, and Apologia, Apologia Radio, and Apologia TV, and Apologia Studios, uh, that he has spearheaded out in Tempe, Arizona, but ironically, he has told me in an interview, and by the way, if anybody wants to hear Jeff's interview as well on abortion mill evangelism, just look up, uh, his interview on ironsharpensironradio .com in the archive, where it says, older shows, podcasts, and, uh, in the search engine there, type in D as in David, U R, B as in boy, I N, Durbin, but he said that most of the women, uh, and I'm pretty certain he said most, if not, uh, nearly all, uh, but, uh, he, uh, said that they, they, they openly admit that they know that they're killing their baby.

I don't know if it's a, it's a different, go ahead, go ahead. So is yours, is your experience different in, on Long Island, New York, where, as far as what you're hearing the women admit? Their eyes are not open to the truth.

They don't, they don't have their, their lives. In many cases, they're not Christian. And that's where I think that we, we need to show, well, if you will, compel already alluded, it's two lives that need to be saved in this situation.

One is the life in the womb, the voiceless life in the womb. And the other is the mother. The father is there. Uh, I strongly believe that if they're.

Hard, uh, they would not. So, uh, well tell us about, uh, your approach. What is it exactly that you do and say, uh, so that those of our listeners who are, uh, tuning in today, or perhaps hearing this program by podcast or, or recording at a later date, uh, who are perhaps even interested or becoming interested now in starting a grassroots ministry in their own congregation or group of congregations, like-minded congregations, wherever they live, uh, tell us exactly what your, uh, your approach is.

What exactly physically do you do? And what do you say when you are approaching people who are entering or leaving an abortion mill?

That we have track, be able to hand out. Uh, we also provide them with information of where they can go. For instance, one of the, uh, ministries is Soundview, uh, which is a, uh, clinic that in the area, but, uh, babies are murdered here.

One that, uh, we put together after, uh, we have, um, virtually everybody is holding that depicts either an aborted child. It's, uh, to encourage. We basically, as well, we basically plead with them, please do not murder your child.

We are here to help you. We are here to guide you. We're here to, that you should not abort your child. And then we'll share with them scripture. Uh, we'll share with them, uh, children that we have in the left.

Then we'll also share with them often what we have heard gone through, uh, devastated and told everything is going to be all right. Everything will work out fine. It's a simple operation. But years and years later, and this is both Chris, they're dreading many times, um, what, uh, has eased her heart and given her peace and such, but she still shares with us how hard it was.

Well, I mean, I'm asking for basically everything you say and do when you're going to an abortion clinic. I mean, people, people may be, people may be, and a lot of people are introverted. They're shy.

They may be frightened about what kind of reaction, uh, people, uh, may have, uh, to this kind of bold approach to them during something that they may be completely embarrassed about. Uh, you know, of course there are many Christians that have, uh, they're uninhibited.

They are very extroverted and they are very bold and unrestrained in their evangelism and they're approaching people to rebuke them, especially over something that involves a life and death matter here.

But, uh, you know, I'm speaking about basically everything that you say and do. And of course you would take a different approach perhaps, uh, as soon as somebody starts opening their mouths, they may be reacting in a different way than another person would.

So you may be, uh, changing, um, the approach or, or manner with which you do this.

Yeah. As, as Jerry said, we trying to reach those. I mean, you have a very limited time from the point of them pulling into the parking lot and walking in that door. What's encouraging to me for our churches is that the relatively small church, although it's been, and by reform about the standard, you know, wide age range of people who come out and come out.

And like Jerry said, we have signs for everyone, invite people to come out. We have signs of babies who are in the womb. You know, we do have the graphic signs as well. We have tracks for a pregnancy crisis center, but we're, as a body, we're trying to tell them, as the body of Christ, we seek to be his hands and feet.

You know, we want to embrace them, walk alongside them, not leave them alone. And as a church, we have committed to, if there are any women who turn away, we will provide the resources necessary. I mean, the Soundview Pregnancy Center, they have a doctor who volunteers his services.

And so we talk about that, but if someone needs counseling, if someone needs food or clothing or shelter, you know, if they need transportation, if they need, um, even adoption services, you know, we have families who would love to adopt.

I couldn't raise... we'd be willing to pay for the adoption services to provide and talk to us so that we can and show how we offer them the gospel, you know, and in the location that we're at at seven o 'clock, we're allowed to use amplification.

And we, uh, over the microphone that we offer, all those things, again, you know, and we know that they can hear us, and we offer those means of assistance. We like to get into script, callous indifference regarding life.

I mean, there are some who don't understand because they're being told a lie. There are some who know and just don't care. And we see all sorts of people come in. Some of them are hostile, you know, they're down and they're shooting in the door.

Some are mocking. They have their camera phones out and they're videoing it as a crime. And again, I said, you know, we have all these reactions going in, but I see the same reaction coming out. I see broken people.

I see people who, once their rooms are empty, they realize that their excuses and their justifications were just as empty, but now it's too late. You know, they don't come out with that same fire, that same spite.

They come out broken. And I tell them with the video cameras, you're not going to need a camera to remember this day. We've spoken to women who years later, decades later, that they took the life of their child, you know, and so we encourage them to consider this and to come out and to talk to us.

I like to go to Exodus 21 because they say, well, abortion is legal, you know, and so we say, well, slavery was once legal. It was legal to steal men, women, and children from their homes and ship them overseas and sell them like they were property.

You know, the Holocaust was done legally. You can't always equate, you know, legality with morality. And Exodus 21 shows us that the child in the womb gives us case law if there's any violence done to a pregnant woman so that her child is ejected from the womb early.

If there's any harm to that child, their legal rights are the same. If any harm is done, it's to be inflicted on the person who caused it, even to the forfeiting of their life. According to God's law, that child in the womb has the same legal protections as you and I, and I point to Exodus 21.

We talk about Proverbs 24 and how it says to rescue those who are, you know, stumbling to death, staggering to the slaughter, and how we're supposed to hold them back, and it's our responsibility as a Church to do that.

It's everyone's responsibility to realize that if they say, oh, we didn't know, doesn't God, who, you know, judges the heart, doesn't He see these things? Doesn't He perceive it? And will He not judge, you know, each one according to their deeds?

And we bring up the mercy of God, that, you know, God, if no one was here, you would still be responsible. You know, you're an image-bearer of God, and so you understand these things. He's shown His mercy to send His Church to not only tell you the truth that you're trying to suppress, but then to offer you help, to offer you that rescue plan, that lifeline.

You know, we hope that there are some women who go and show themselves to you. He's calling out to you. We talk about Christ coming, and God taking on flesh, coming as a baby, you know, to this world.

And if God, who wouldn't withhold His Son, you know, He wouldn't withhold anything that we need to deliver us. And so we really run the gamut, and they don't have to, you know, saying, hey, don't do this, hey, come on, and telling them all the things that we'll provide them with.

You know, their family's going to reject them. We have people who are willing to do that. We attempt every means possible to let them know that we care about them, we love them, you know, and we're willing to do whatever it takes.

We're not just out there to protest and just say, we don't like abortion. We're willing to be like, because they'd see each other on the street normally, but here, sees this person in need and stops, you know, to provide medical care, provide transportation, provide lodging, hospitality, do all these things for someone who probably would hate their guts normally.

But we want to show them that we love them in a nutshell.

Great. And by the way, Chris, whatever you're doing in regard to your voice, keep doing it that way, because earlier on, your voice was a lot more tinny and had a little feedback issue. But you seem to have cleared up a lot, and you sound more crisp and clear at this point.

Oh, very good. Okay, sorry about that.

No, that's all right. These are just technical things, especially since this is the first time you've been on my show. We are going to our first break right now, and I hope that you take this time to write down questions for our guests, Reginald T. Smith and Chris McDowell.

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But we are now back to our discussion with our guests today, Reginald T. Smith and Chris McDowell. We are speaking about making abortion mill evangelism a grassroots ministry for volunteers in the local church.

If you have questions of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the USA.

Please only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Perhaps you've even contemplated having an abortion. Perhaps you've had an abortion or more than one abortion. Perhaps you have someone very close to you who is either considering or has had an abortion.

All of those things obviously would give someone perhaps the desire to remain anonymous. So if it's something personal and private like that, please feel free to remain anonymous. Other than that though, please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

We do have a listener in Alberta, Canada, whose name is Jake, and he asked a question that you guys have already kind of stole his thunder because what he asked you've already answered, but he also involves things in his question that perhaps you could add to your commentary.

He says, I'd be curious to know what circumstances motivated you two to do this work and what resources you would recommend for me for starters. I guess mainly to get greater convictions in that area.

I know for us and Canada it is a different story since we're not allowed to get close to an abortion mill when speaking on the so that's interesting. So you do have some things that you didn't really discuss yet that involve your legal rights as Christians as to how close you can get to an abortion mill and the details involving that, and this may differ from state to state, might even differ from city to city, but respond to Jake's question from Alberta, Canada.

Sure, gladly. One thing, Chris, Reginald is a very legal.

But but I and he will. You know, all the years I've known you, I always called you Jerry, and I don't even know how Reginald got into my mind with you.

Well, in answer to that, I would like to recommend one is that they did.