Premiere: On The Sermon That Changed Everything

The Sermon That Changed the Abortion Ministry

So, this is Rusty Thomas, and Rusty, your sermon was the center of Babies Are Murdered Here, part one. And it was your sermon that God used to move me, move us in particular, to stop the abstraction about abortion being murder and we need to stop this and talking about it in coffee shops with Christians and once a year during church kind of a thing.

Your sermon, God was preparing the way for us to start this ministry to start saving lives and preaching the gospel at the abortion mills, but it was your sermon that broke us that God used to, you have to do this and you're going to do it.

And so, that was the start for us to get into this movement which led all the other churches sort of along with us. So, there's always little moments that God sort of provided and raised up to get us to where we're at today, all of us, the churches.

So, right now, within Abortion Now, we have over 420 something local churches across the United States of America who are out preaching the gospel, calling it what it is.

We just had one in Germany. Sign up.

Yeah, someone just signed up from Germany. We have people in Northern and Southern Ireland and Canada, Australia, New Zealand that are beginning. So, God's been doing amazing things. So, we were talking before the cameras were on just about, and I want to hear what you have to say about this.

When the first film came out, all of it was organic. There was no master plan. There was no like meeting of the minds to say, how can we do something that it was all church-based, gospel-centered work that led to this movement, and it was, I mean, a best way to describe it is penniless.

In comparison to the massive funds that the pro-choice movement has and the pro-life movement has, we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars. What took place was $5 ,000 for Babies Are Married Here Part 1 to produce that film, and then when you think about the shoestring budget that we operate on that's created this whole movement, your ministry, our ministry, I mean, we're talking like pennies we have to fight with compared to what these other major organizations have, but what I was saying was there's so much coherence where God organically brings together in His providence.

Coherence, Providence, and the Next Stage of the Abortion Fight

The first part of the mission was blood guiltiness, gospel, murder, the need for the church to get on their feet to fight this, and the second film, Babies Are Murdered Here 2, Babies Are Still Murdered Here, it's not out yet, but what people will see is another moment of real coherence.

Stage 2 is now actually reformation within the pro-life movement and the public square in terms of criminalizing, banning, ending, abolishing abortion. It needs to be now at the legislature. Gospel message, obey Jesus, uphold justice at the legislature, but also it needs to be now a real exposure of the failures of the pro-life movement in terms of they will not allow it to be about Jesus.

They don't want it to be about Scripture. They don't want it to be gospel-centered. They'll say it explicitly. They don't want to say women who killed their babies in the womb are murderers. They don't want to do that, and Babies Are Murdered Here 2 is all about reformation in the public square in the area of child sacrifice, and it's not just at the abortion mill.

It's step 2. Now we have to go to the legislature and demand justice for the pre-born.

That first film, again, it shows in the trailer that I wasn't even aware at that point that this documentary was even going to be put together, so it really kind of came as a shock to my system, and the organic part of this, Jeff, that most people don't realize, the gathering was called the Herald Society.

It was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Jeff Rose from Jeremiah Cry Ministries wanted to bring together street preachers who had been, you know, basically they'd been tried in the public fires of the public proclamation of the gospel, but he wanted them to come together to really kind of make sure the movement stayed on track with the Lord and with the true message of the gospel because, you know, some people go out in the streets, and they may have a right message but a wrong spirit, or they have a wrong message and a right spirit, and so they were just wanting to make sure, hey, that we're on tracking, you know, with God, with the truth of his word, with the truth of the gospel.

Well unbeknownst to me, you know, Jeff invited me to come in, and he asked me to minister on three messages. One was the gospel of the kingdom, the other was brave-hearted manhood, and then the doctrine of blood guiltiness.

Now there was a wide variety of Christians from different theological camps all the way from, you know, dispensationalism to covenant kingdom, brothers and sisters, and so there was a wide variety of folks there, you know, majority were Reformed, Calvinistic, there were probably some Armenians in the thick of it, but the fact of the matter is out of the three messages, the doctrine of blood guiltiness, that was the one that hit.

And it happened in such a way that they weren't manipulated emotionally, you know, by the plight of the pre-born. What God did at that moment was able to connect, particularly with the Reformed brethren, because, you know, they're not really concerned about subjective experience, they're more in tuned with, you know, objective truth, you know, theology, doctrine, these are high qualities, you know, in the Reformed, amongst the Reformed brethren.

And for whatever reason, I was allowed to connect with them on a doctrinal theological basis. And like I said, a lot of these brothers were already preaching the gospel on the streets, but they had never thought to bring the gospel of the kingdom right to the gates of hell, right to the exposed areas where this American Holocaust was taking place.

And so when the message of the doctrine of the blood guiltiness went forth, you could literally feel like in the atmosphere, like light bulbs were just going pop, pop, pop. I mean, like eyes were being opened, hearts were being opened, God's Word was being open.

And I do believe there was a burning that took place in men's hearts and that they saw, my goodness, you know, this is a Holocaust, you know, we're singing songs to Jesus, you know, in our churches while our nation's going to hell in a hat basket.

We have exposed areas morally and spiritually, our walls are down, our gates are being burned as a people and basically the church for the most part, we've been AWOL, we've been missing in action. We've ignored the suffering and the injustice committed against the pre-born.

And so when that message hit, brother, it really took on a life of its own. And the fruit has been amazing. And I was just sharing this with Luke and, you know, I'm a part of it and I don't want to make it bigger than it is, brother, but I am a student of history and I am a student of Scripture.

And it just seems to me that in different generations, there were certain messages that God moved upon, you know, by the power of His Holy Spirit that changed things. You know, obviously the most famous one in America is, you know, sinners in the hands of an angry God, Jonathan Edwards.

I mean, this is a guy who spoke in a monotone voice, who read word for word his sermons. So he wasn't a charismatic guy, you know, he didn't have no emphasis. He didn't speak loudly. He just, in a monotone voice, just spoke his message.

And people were literally hanging on to poles thinking they were being sucked into hell, screaming, you know. And that message, you know, produced the first great awakening, you know. And just for me, brother, from my perspective, I've been in this battle for many decades now, more than I wish to care for.

But the fact of the matter is, something special happened at that Herald Society. Something special happened with that message, the doctrine of blood guiltiness. And it just seemed to me like it was like a game changer.

It was like things shifted. And all of a sudden, God's Word started to go forth amongst the churches. And of course, you guys, Apologia, were a major part of the equation. Because once the penny dropped for you guys, and you began to see the goodness and the justice and the rightness of this, and began to pour your resources as a church, the fruit that has come from that, Jeff, has been absolutely phenomenal.

And it's not limited to the United States of America. It is now spreading to other nations.

Globally, yeah.

And so, you know, this fits very well with the gospel of the kingdom.

Of the kingdom.

With the gospel of the kingdom.

Yes, it's little mustard seeds that become trees. Leaven and lumps of dough that permeate all of the loaf.

Amen. Amen. So, yeah, brother, that first documentary did exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or think. And this second one, I mean, I haven't seen the whole thing.

You just previewed the first 18 minutes.

Yeah, I previewed the first 18 minutes.

What did you think?

Well, it's a much needed light to expose the failed policies and the failed strategies of the pro-life movement. You know what it's like, Jeff, just from a political point of view, you know, most of us are keenly aware of, you know, the progressive, the liberals, the secularists, the humanists, and the damage they have done to the freedoms of our nation.

You know, really, it's acts of treason to a certain degree.

Without question.

But the fact of the matter is, we can't even get to the real issues that these camps have done to our nation, because the Republican Party provides a buffer for us to get to the real issues to change our nation.

In other words, before we can change the damage that has been done by the progressives, we first have to defeat the Republican establishment that provides cover and a buffer against the reformation that is needed to change our nation.

Why? Tell me why. Give me some like explicit, because I know what you're aiming at, but like, what are they buffering?

Well, brother, just, well, I'll give you a quote by R .L. Dabney.

Okay. Okay.

He said, conservatism, and he was talking about northern conservatism, is pretend salt. It talks like salt. It votes like salt.

Yes.

All right. But when you open it up, you find that it's empty husks of perdition. He said, all conservatives do is maintain the ground that liberals take.

Okay.

And the reason why is, he says, because they believe martyrdom is folly. In other words, they never have found a cause worth dying for. And so all they can simply do is maintain the ground that progressives take.

And of course, the progressives take more ground. And then what it means to be conservative changes. Like today, today, today, a conservative, like 100 years ago, would have been like a flaming liberal.

Oh, yeah.

Like a flaming progressive.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right.

And this is how things progress.

Yeah, we threw tea into water for taxes on one item, like what, 2 or something like that.

So it's amazing. And so, but the same thing rings true when it comes to ending the American Holocaust. We can't change our nation because we have the pro-life movement standing in the way.

Why the Pro-Life Movement Is Failing

How?

I'm not going to question everybody's motives. I think there are some people in the pro-life movement that have still a decent and a good motive. But the failure has been in a number of things. First of all, concerning God Almighty.

How in the world, when we're up against the depth of this evil and depravity, how do we expect hearts and minds to change without the aid of Almighty God? And to think that the majority of the pro-life movement wants to hide his name.

Now, they have no problem quoting Gandhi. They don't have a problem quoting scientists or philosophers, but they got a huge problem in naming the name that is above all names. In which every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord to the glory of the Father.

Okay, so we have this sort of public denial of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And we know how dangerous that is biblically. I mean, Jesus told us if we deny him before men, he's going to deny us before our Father in heaven.

So denial is like huge, huge issue biblically. And then in the public square, we're going to basically ignore his holy commandment. Thou shall not murder. And we understand biblically that the commandment of God is what frames the infrastructure of.

Reality.

That the commandment of God is the extension of his righteous and holy character, just as he's given us laws of physics as the basis of the scientific method. He has given us moral commandments to fit into his universe without destroying ourselves and destroying others.

So failure of the pro-life movement is being ashamed of Jesus Christ?

To a large degree.

To a large degree. Explicitly Christian?

Yeah, and then we delude his truth.

And then the issue of his law. We have had a pro-life industry that receives hundreds of millions of dollars that doesn't want to make the battle about you shall not murder because God says. We don't want it to be about that.

We want it to be on some other ground, some other neutral ground, non-Christian ground, non-law of God ground. So the distinction between what we're saying as the church with a gospel-centered message and what they're saying is we're saying it needs to be about Jesus.

It needs to be about God's law. It needs to be about the gospel. We need to minister to these women as a mission field for Christ and not a neutral ground for a soft core secular humanism.

Well, and Jesus, obviously brother, he demonstrated in the gospel that neutrality is an impossibility.

Yes.

He said, you are either for me or you are against me.

Yeah.

You're either gathering or you're scattering. And he warned obviously Israel of his time, you know, you either fall upon me and be broken or I'm going to fall on you and crush you to powder. I mean, he is known as the stone of stumbling and the rock of offense.

And of course, it's almost like a large part of the church and the large part of the pro-life movement don't want people to stumble over Jesus Christ. But if they don't stumble and fall, how in the world can they be saved?

Yeah.

The only other option is he's going to fall on us and crush us to powder.

So Rusty, can we just go on record here and say that for us, it is about the gospel. It is about our nation coming to Jesus and not simply having a temporary law for a decade that maybe criminalizes aspects of abortion.

We want to see our nation come to Jesus.

Brother, that is our obligation as the Church of Jesus Christ. Those who are truly born again from above that have the Spirit of the living God dwelling in them, whose sins have been washed away by the blood of the Lamb, our names are recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Those people that God has set apart for himself, we have a divine task. And that is called the Great Commission. And part of that commission is to make sure that the nations obey the commandments of God.

So any nation, Jeff, that's sacrificing children and shedding innocent blood, any nation that's parading their sin like Sodom, this is not a nation that's been discipled by the Church of Jesus Christ.

And in fact, what has happened, instead of the church being salt and light in this corrupt culture, the corrupt culture has sweetened the church and we are suffering from major, major truth decay in the land.

And the fruit of it is all around us, brother. And unfortunately, a lot of the church and the pro-life movement have been involved in this betrayal against our Lord, and his goodness, and his justice, and his love, and his truth, and his mercy.

And we have done what he warned us not to do. Don't hide your light under a bushel. And so to a large degree, these entities who say in their motive they want to end this nightmare in the United States of America by hiding the light under the bushel, we're enabling it.

And that has to stop in Jesus' name.

The Gospel of the Kingdom and Spiritual Warfare

Yeah.

Well, yeah, so to kind of switch gears for a minute, you and I were talking earlier about the spiritual aspect of this fight, and you've mentioned the gospel of the kingdom, right? And so we had an awesome discussion.

I stopped and was like, hold on. We got to talk about this. We got to talk about this later. But yeah, so talk about just, you know, we were talking about the enemy being spiritual, and you were talking about the church essentially being anemic, it's hiding the light, essentially being cowardly, right?

Our friend Andrew Sandlin says the church is incestuous, right? Because we're too inward focused on ourselves and not outward, not proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.

Right.

And so let's talk about what we were talking about earlier, as far as how actually proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom in this fight, what is the outwork into that? What does that look like when it comes to the spiritual fight in this battle?

This is a huge, huge issue, brothers, and it's one we do have to prepare the church, and especially those in the abolitionist movement. I just wrote my newest booklet based upon this premise. It's called Christ's Kingdom, the Doctrine of Satan, and the Abolition of Abortion.

And the premise of this is I just briefly, it's a small booklet, but I just briefly go through the Doctrine of Satan in the Bible. And so what do we find? Well, large debut in the book of Genesis, the unsavory character is revealed.

He's in the serpent. He's deceiving our first parents. You know, treachery, betrayal, you know, and the great fall. And then pretty much from there on out in the Old Testament, it's sort of silent. He does appear a couple of times with David when he inspired him to count Israel or when he went after Joshua, the high priest.

There was some evidence that Satan was still at work in the earth, but pretty much quiet. Job, Job probably has the most references of Satan in the Old Testament. And even then, it's pretty brief. It's not really revealing.

And so pretty much through the Old Testament, except for the beginning, it's kind of quiet. And then something happens at the dawn of the new covenant. When Christ appears, obviously, he doesn't appear alone.

He appears with his kingdom. And he makes this astounding statement as, you know, what is the sign that his kingdom had come, had come, past tense to the earth. And he said, if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, you know, you know this, my kingdom has come.

OK, so we got to put these two together. Basically, hidden, he's there. We know he's there, but basically hidden in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, he cannot stay hidden. In fact, he was manifesting in the synagogues.

Initially, demons did more acknowledgement of the deity of Christ, more acknowledgement of the gospel of the kingdom than the apostles. That is how much Christ and his kingdom shook up the powers of darkness.

They could no longer be hidden. And they began to manifest. Of course, Christ shut them down. I don't need your PR. You know, I'll do just fine on my own. Shut up, get out of here in Jesus name. We didn't say Jesus name, you know, but you know what I'm saying, right?

And so the question we have to ask ourselves, Jeff and Luke, is this. We know our culture is absolutely demonized. Corrupt to its core. And we have church services. And there is no manifestation of the demonic realm.

And we got to ask the question, how is that possible? What is lacking in the church of Jesus Christ that the demonic realm can wreak havoc amongst the people and they remain hidden? And they don't manifest.

See, this ties into the gospel of the kingdom. See, I truly believe that the abolition of abortion is the forceful advance of the kingdom of God in this generation. And so what are we seeing happen from the enemy's camp?

They're starting to manifest. I mean, incredibly. And you've seen videos of these people. I mean, literally. I mean, your hair goes up on end. You sense an evil presence, you know, taking place. And so what is that based on?

Well, the book of Revelation tells us when the enemy's time is short, he becomes full of fury. And here's the thing, brothers, the toothpaste is coming out of the tube. And what I mean by that, we are finally bringing to the table in this battle to end this Holocaust, something that passes biblical muster, something that passes historical muster, and something that passes constitutional muster.

It is good. It is right. It is just. It is holy. Okay. And what freaks out the enemy's camp, most of all, is the fact that we now have legislators who are taking our message serious, and they're beginning to act upon it, which signals their time is short.

And so what are we seeing that accompanies that? We're seeing the manifestation of the demonic realm. So our issue is how do we deal with this as the Church of Jesus Christ, especially the Church of Jesus Christ, that is promoting the abolitionist movement?

Are we prepared? Are we equipped? Because, yes, there is the realm of man, the depravity of man. We know that biblically, the depravity of man. And Jesus told us that people would be angry if we shine the light of truth upon them and expose their deeds as evil.

Yes, there would be this angry reaction from the world that they would hate us because they hated Christ first.

The Battle Against the Flesh, Demons, and the Seed of Man

All right.

So there is that aspect of this battle. And even in the book of Galatians, the apostle Paul told us that part of the works of the flesh is sorcery, witchcraft. Now, normally, we wouldn't associate sorcery and witchcraft with a work of the flesh.

But biblically, the apostle Paul put it in that category. So there is that aspect of it. It's a work of the flesh. But the sovereign God also tells us there's another realm besides the depravity of man, the anger of man, and the work of the flesh, and that there are actual beings without bodies that are sent to wage war against the saints of the living God.

And these beings crave habitation. They absolutely crave habitation. And the scriptures are very explicit on this. And so this is the realm we are starting to enter here. And the thing that we have to understand, once you start getting involved in this realm, demons don't give a rip about your logic.

They don't give a rip about your reasoning abilities. They are not moved by your theology. And they are not touched by your doctrine. It doesn't impress them in the least. Something... Now, that may work when we're trying to reach lost souls for the kingdom of God.

Those things are very effectual in reaching the lost, but it has no impact. Upon the demonic realm. And so knowing who we are in Christ, knowing the authority that God has granted His people, and exercising that authority through the name of Christ, through the blood of the Lamb, through the anointing of the Holy Spirit, through the proclamation of the gospel of the kingdom, this is how this enemy is driven out and captives are set free.

And one of the points I bring out in the book, Jeff, is this. In 30-something years fighting this battle, I've learned this truth. I can't cast out the flesh and I cannot counsel a demon. And we better know for sure what the heck it is we are dealing with when it comes to this battle.

And that's why these things are critically, critically important when we're entering these kind of realms.

And we are.

And they are manifesting. And we got to deal with it.

Ultimately, because we talk about this is a battle for worship, right? And we talk about Gideon, like when Gideon came in, and actually I got this from you, but Gideon came, he tore down the place of worship.

Literally, that was what he did. And they wanted to kill him. So this is a battle for worship. And for far too long, the enemy has been allowed to have the worship they wanted. And so when you come proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, you're saying, uh-uh, we're replacing, just like Gideon, we're replacing these false places of worship with true God-honoring worship.

And it's a battle over worship. And ultimately, even the enemy knows that a blood sacrifice is necessary to win this battle. We have one blood sacrifice. When it comes to abortion, there's your blood sacrifice there on their side of the worship.

Well, here's the thing. We know that anytime the enemy raises his ugly head, he goes after the seed of man. In other words, we know in the Bible, this enemy comes to kill, steal, and destroy. And we share that with Christians.

The Christians preach that from the pulpit. But they never ask the underlying question, why? What the heck is with this being that he gets his jollies about killing, stealing, and destroying? See, we never ask the underlying question, why?

What is in this being that he feels compelled, this is what he has to do?

Well, here's the deal.

He's a person, he's a being. And you know what all persons have in common? It's called survival. It's called self-preservation is a mighty motivation. So what does he know that the church of Jesus Christ perhaps has forgotten?

See, he understands this one truth. I either go after the seed of man, or I get dispossessed. Now, how do we know biblically that is true? Well, remember when the parents brought the children to Jesus for them to bless their children.

And remember, the apostles tried to keep them away. You know, go to the children's church, the master's kind of busy here. And of course, he got angry. He got upset. What the heck are you thinking? He said, bring the children to me, for such is the kingdom of God.

We talk about the gospel of the kingdom. So in God's divine mind, children equals the kingdom. So why birth control? Why abortion? Why this anti-child mentality that has not just impacted the heathen and pagan world, but has ill-affected the church of Jesus Christ?

And the same reason why pagans and heathens and somebody who named the name of Jesus are walking in abortion mills, paying assassins to murder their babies and shed innocent blood. And we have Christians who don't want to have children because they believe they're a burden.

They're expensive. They're this, they're that. They're everything except what Jesus Christ proclaimed them to be. Gifts, rewards, blessings. And so we even ourselves have fallen prey to this anti-child mentality.

And this is totally inspired. So you gotta understand when it comes to birth control and abortion, this is Satan's frontal assault against the very kingdom of God itself. And unfortunately, the church of Jesus Christ is going along with his plan.

And that thing has to be busted in Jesus' name. This is where we have to repent. This is where we have to come into agreement with almighty God, what he says about marriage and what he says about family and what he says about children.

I mean, what began to change my mind, it was abortion that changed my mind about family. That's what did it. When God opened my eyes and broke my heart.

Over the plight of children,.

Imagine my shock when the realization comes to me that I have the same mentality that comes out of Planned Parenthood and I'm expecting to defeat them. When I am marching to the dictates of their orders as a Christian, I have the same worldview about family and children as Planned Parenthood.

Believe me, there was a lot of repenting I had to do. And then when I began to read scriptures on Psalm 127, you know, blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them. Speaking of children, that they're his reward, is his gifts.

And, you know, and I challenge churches all the time and particularly Christian men. If you're in a war zone and we know we're in a war zone, you know, how many bullets do you want? You want one?

You want two?

If you got bullets zipping by your heads, how much ammunition do you need?

Do you want?

Well, blessed is the man who has his quiver.

Full of them.

And so all this, when you talk about the worship, I mean, literally, just on a national scale, we talk about one nation under God. That used to mean the true and living God. You're a one nation under the true and living God.

Well, with the advent of abortion, with the advent of parading our sin like Sodom, we are literally now one nation under Moloch and one nation under Baal. I mean, this is what has happened. So this not only affects worship, the true worship of God, this affects law, this affects government, this affects the church, it affects the family.

I mean, these are the ramifications of what happens when we move away from God and the truth of his word and the gospel of his kingdom. And this is why it's so important we get back.

Critically important.

Amen. That's good.

Powerful stuff.

There you go.