Why We Believe: Ab0rt10n is Murd3r

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It is well, it is well with my soul

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It is well, it is well with my soul

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If you would open your

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Bibles to Proverbs chapter 24. Proverbs 24 in verse 10.

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Proverbs 24 verse 10. Hear now the word of the living and the true

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God. If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

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Rescue those who are being taken away to death. Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

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If you say, behold we did not know this, does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?

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Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it? And will he not repay man according to his work?

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Thus far is the reading of God's holy inspired word. Let's pray together as God's people.

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Lord, we come before you humbled by the gift that you've given to us to continue to gather, to worship you, to be under the hearing of your word.

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Thank you for the fellowship of the saints. Thank you for the gift of the supper.

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Thank you for the gift that we're holding in our hands right now and we recognize God that we don't deserve it in ourselves and we recognize

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God in your providence. There are believers around the world right now who have been forbidden to gather and forbidden even in some places to have your word.

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So we pray for them and Lord we want to give you glory for giving us so much grace to be where we're at right now and to be doing what we're doing right now.

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We praise you. We ask God that you bless the Lord, the proclamation of your word today. Allow it to change us, to challenge us, to take root within us.

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Embolden our church, God. Father, please help us to be humble and bold.

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Give us strength to fight for the truth. Give us,

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Lord, the kind of strength that can resist the temptation to compromise. Help us,

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Lord, to love our neighbors and you the way that you call us to. I do pray, God, that you would open our eyes to your truth and get the preacher out of the way.

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In Jesus' name, amen. So, it's a powerful verse, set of verses in Proverbs, this book of wisdom, skill in living, how do

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I live? It's amazing because, of course, this set of verses can apply in a number of different contexts, and they should apply in a number of different contexts, but when we think about our current context, we can think about a number of places where it does apply, and I think chiefly and premierly it would apply in the area of the slaughter of the pre -born, child sacrifice.

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It's existed for a long time throughout human history. Mothers and fathers have sacrificed their children to false gods in grotesque ways.

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In our particular context, mothers and fathers engage in the ancient art and ritual of child sacrifice in a way that is sanitized and has the facade or veneer of medical treatment.

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It's done in places with people with white lab coats, and it's done in places where we can hide ourselves from the horror and the blood.

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It's done in places where we can cover up the fact that we've decapitated and disemboweled our own son or daughter.

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But God's word commands His people. This is written long before the time of Christ. These are words that the

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Lord Jesus would have been meditating on as a young boy. God says to His people, if you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.

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That's calling you out. It's calling out the weakness. It's calling out the unwillingness to fight when there's adversity.

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And the command goes out like this, rescue those who are being taken away to death. Hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

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That certainly applies to image bearers of God in the womb who are being slaughtered.

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If you say, God says, behold, we did not know this, right? Like, I didn't know. I mean, how was

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I supposed to do anything? I didn't know this was going on. I didn't know that I was supposed to actually love my neighbor.

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I didn't know that it was supposed to actually look like something to lay my life down for another. God says, if you say, behold, we didn't know this, does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?

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In other words, this is God we're talking about. He knows your innermost secrets.

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He knows your mind. He knows your heart. He knows what you do know. There's no escaping His mind and His knowledge.

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And He says, and will He not repay man according to His work? So the command of God is to do justice and to love your neighbor.

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Jesus says the two chief or premier laws of God, upon which every law of God is given, is to love

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God and to love neighbor. Love God and love neighbor. And when we talk about the context that we're in right now, the issue of child sacrifice and abortion and abortion being murder, this is premierly an issue of loving

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God. God makes the commands. He says, this is what you're to do. This is how you're supposed to view this.

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This is what I'm calling you to do. So we engage and we fight and we speak prophetically out of love for God to submit to Him and to His law to love

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God. And of course, we rescue those who are being taken away to death and hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter out of, of course, obedience to God, but also love for neighbor.

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Love for neighbor cannot just be a slogan. It can't just be a bumper sticker evangelical 21st century

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Western Christians put on their bumpers. Love for neighbor looks like something.

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Love for neighbor is an action. It does something. Love for neighbor is not merely the emotional content that we feel.

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That's a valid thing, of course, but love actually looks like something. It's definitional. Love does something.

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And so, of course, love for neighbor in this context we're in actually looks like rescuing those who are being taken away to death, hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.

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You know, the reason for this message I had mentioned at the beginning here, we had a plan, of course, but current events have challenged us as your pastors to make sure that we speak to your hearts and we prepare you, we teach you, we equip you, we do what we're responsible to do as your pastors.

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And so, I wanted to give this message. Of course, this week, God has given to us this amazing gift and opportunity to speak the truth in the public square.

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He's given to us the ear of certain legislators in the state of Arizona and, of course, across the country.

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But in our context, we have a legislator who is actually putting in a bill to criminalize the issue of abortion, to protect image bearers of God, human beings in the womb, from conception.

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That's justice. That's justice. And so, how did we get here?

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Just a quick overview. You have to understand, as you look at the church today, praise God, first of all, but this used to be that drug church.

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Welcome to it, right? Doesn't look like it now. When we first planted this church, we planted it out of a drug rehab with a bunch of people who were on detoxification medicine.

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We had people who were still in halfway houses, marriages destroyed, homes destroyed, everything just gone.

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Just a handful of rebels. People used to love our online teaching ministry, so they'd say,

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I'm going to go to that church. And then they would come to Apologia Church and have to walk through a cloud of smoke as they walked through the doors from all the people who were, you know, just coming to Christ out of addiction, still puffing away at their

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Marlboro cigarettes outside the front door. It was rather uncomfortable. We'd have families come in. They'd look like, you know, just like a fish out of water.

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Like, what is going on here? It was that drug church. We had people like, I love your teaching ministry.

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This is just an amazing church, but I ain't bringing my family here. People with, like, tattooed faces and necks and, like, you know, it just...

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And there's no kids. And for a while, our family, Luke's family and mine, we thought,

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I guess this is just kind of what we're going to do as a church. We're just going to be that drug church with no kids and no families.

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It's just like Luke's and Cheryl's kids and me and Candy's kids, and that's just what it's going to be. And then all of a sudden,

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God started changing lives and transforming people, and people started getting together and having babies.

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And we started having other families come, families that were mature in the faith, that knew

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Christ and could mentor these other believers. And God started to grow this. And as that started to happen, what actually took place is

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God started to challenge us as a church. We were already doing evangelism. We were already out on the streets, preaching the gospel boldly to the cult and to others.

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But then this issue of abortion was put front and center, and we were challenged. I won't go over all the details, but we were challenged as a very, very small church, very small church with no resources.

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I mean, honestly, you're pastors, we could barely feed ourselves. It was a day -to -day struggle to figure out how we're going to feed our kids, how are we going to pay our rent, that sort of a thing.

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We didn't have any resources, but we knew what God called us to, and we wanted to be faithful where we were.

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We didn't know what we were doing, so we went to the abortion mill with this knowledge. These are image bearers of God.

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They're going to murder their children. We have the message of hope. We knew the gospel could transform hearts.

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We knew we wanted to love these mothers and fathers and these children. We knew we wanted to help them, and we offered to adopt their children or take care of anything necessary.

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We didn't even have the means to do it, but we promised it because we knew God would provide it. And so we went.

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The very first day, I went to a Planned Parenthood in Phoenix. Two babies were saved in that first hour.

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And so we realized, hey, this is something. We can do this. And so a small ragtag band of believers from Apologia Church started going out to the abortion mills locally, preaching the gospel, calling mothers and fathers not to murder their children, and offering help and offering hope.

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And so we started saving babies. Like every week, we would have a new report on Apologia Radio. Hey, just so you guys know, we saved like two babies this weekend.

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Praise God. We saved three babies. We saved babies, and we're just announcing it. And so people started contacting us saying, hey, how'd you do that?

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And we were like, I don't know. We go out there, preach the gospel. We offer to help them. There's nothing special about it.

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We're just the church. That's it. We're just the church going out there, preaching the gospel, offering to help them. And so more churches started getting involved.

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We started saving so many more babies. Then God granted to us the ability to do end abortion now as a ministry of Apologia Church to train other churches how to do this.

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But we knew, of course, there was two lanes we needed to focus on. One was the call of the church to rescue these children.

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We know where they're being killed. Sometimes it's right next door to a church. And so we were calling churches to go out there, preach the gospel.

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Then they started saving children. And at this point, so many children have been saved, we don't really know how to count.

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Last year, we know it was at minimum 3 ,000 children saved. Last year alone.

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Yes, that's a big praise to God. We think it's much, much, much, much more than that, but we want to be conservative in terms of what we can confirm.

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And so God's been doing this. But we knew there was another lane. You need to speak prophetically to the legislators around us, the ones who can actually stop the flow into the abortion facilities where mothers and fathers are paying someone to assassinate their child.

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So we started a movement. Pastor Zach went to the city council. He preached the gospel. He demanded they obey

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God and establish justice. It started a movement across the country where churches started going to their city councils, preaching the gospel, and demanding immediate justice.

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Not regulation, justice now for these human beings. There were children, 10 years old, 12 years old, nine years old, going to speak to magistrates, preaching the gospel and demanding justice.

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It happened all across the country. And of course, at this point in the game, where we're at now, we have 13 states we're working with who are about to put legislation in to criminalize, abolish, and ban abortion in the state.

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And we're working on 13 more. That's where we've come from. So big praise to God. And I wanted to say this.

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People who are watching this online right now, you can't really see, this is not a megachurch. It isn't.

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This isn't a megachurch. We're, you know, according to some, we're a larger church. We're not that, there's not that many of us.

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We don't have that many resources. The pro -life industry has had millions upon millions upon millions, tens of millions of dollars over 50 years since Roe.

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And the sorts of things they celebrate is, I'll give you another one example from, I think about a week and a half ago. They celebrate this as a victory.

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Yeah, you can murder your child, but you have to give it a proper burial. And they call that a victory.

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Continuing the flow of murdered children and blood in our streets. And they say it's a victory because we're at least giving the child the dignity of a burial.

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That isn't victory. It isn't justice. And this is what happens when you let the saints in, is we call people to Christ and we demand justice.

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So this coming Friday, I wanted to prepare you as a church. We're going into the public square with a rally to preach

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Christ. This isn't about politics. This isn't about Republican.

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This isn't even about the pro -life industry. We are Christians coming into the public square to preach the gospel and to demand justice.

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This is about God's authority in our world. Jesus said it, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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And on that basis, we go into the public square and we proclaim his lordship. That's what we're doing.

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And so we need to talk about fundamental principles. This is important. I'm going to get you prepared. You guys ready? Yes. I'm going to try to go as fast as I can here today.

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I don't want to keep you here forever, but you all know my sins in this area. So I'm going to do my best. Okay. Fundamental principles, the things that matter and are underneath us.

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We could spend a lot of time on each and every one of these points, but I'm going to lay them out for you as quickly as I can. Number one, a fundamental principle.

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There is no neutrality. Neutrality is a myth. And I hope we're seeing that now glaring bright right in front of us.

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Neutrality is a myth. It's a myth. Have you noticed now that from the top to the bottom in our society or the bottom to the top, whichever direction you have people who are boldly proclaiming their worldview and their commitments, and they're demanding of everybody that you follow suit.

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They don't even want people acknowledging gender anymore. And they're putting it as a, in terms of public debates and legislation, don't use gendered pronouns when talking about people don't say he or she, and make those assumptions.

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And they're demanding that people actually follow suits. We're being told by the way, you understand this is really important.

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Blasphemy laws are an unavoidable thing. Everyone understand that? Everybody will always protect their gods.

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It's unavoidable. We say, oh, you believe that there should be laws against blasphemy? Yeah. Just like you do today.

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You know what they call it today? Hate speech. What are they doing? They're protecting their gods.

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What does God call sexual immorality in Colossians chapter three, he calls sexual immorality, idolatry, idolatry.

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So sexual immorality is actually engaging in false worship of a false God, right?

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So God defines sexual morality as idolatry. That is false worship, right?

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In our culture today, people say that if you don't allow me to express my sexual perversion, then we're going to call it hate speech.

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You're a bigot or a racist. However, that just kicks down on every conversation today.

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What are people doing in that case? They're protecting their gods. Modern day hate speech is just blasphemy laws.

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There is no neutrality. People will always protect their gods and there is no neutrality.

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It is philosophically speaking, a myth. Everybody has a particular metaphysic, a view of reality, the doctrine of reality, what's real.

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Everyone has an epistemology, how they know what they know and everybody has an ethical system, how they should behave, what we ought to do with one another.

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There is no neutrality. Philosophically speaking, it's a myth and biblically speaking, it's a myth and it's a sin to pretend neutrality.

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Jesus says, whoever is not with me is against me. We have to embrace that as Christians today and I hope it's more obvious than before.

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We have to embrace that. Jesus says you are either with me or you are against me.

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There is no neutrality. There's no neutrality in my philosophy. There's no neutrality in my family.

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There's no neutrality in my church. There is no neutrality in the state and that should be obvious.

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Number one, no neutrality. Number two, here's a fundamental principle. Jesus is the king. Listen, brothers and sisters, understand this.

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We preached on this recently. You have to hear this. You have to embrace this. When the early Christians, the early church was going into the

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Caesar world and they were saying Jesus is Lord, you understand they were making a political statement.

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This isn't about pithy politics. It's a political fight to say, no,

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Jesus is Lord over Caesar. That got them killed. Why? Because you were saying that there was somebody or something that had authority over Caesar that was above the states.

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Christianity started as enemies of the states. Here's our proclamation. Jesus is

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Lord. Here's our proclamation. Jesus is the king of kings. Here's our proclamation. He's the

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Lord of Lords. Here's our proclamation. Jesus left us with these departing words.

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Every Christian's supposed to embrace this. This isn't supposed to be a point of dispute amongst any believer in history.

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Jesus says, all authority in heaven, and here's what's always forgotten, amen, and on earth has been given to me.

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That's past tense, 2000 years ago, already been given to Jesus. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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And Jesus says on that basis, because I have all authority, he says, go therefore because of that.

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And he says, do what? Go and disciple the nations, baptize them, and do what to them?

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He says, teach them to obey. You know,

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I don't know what the term, I had an associated press reporter message me this week.

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They want to do an interview with me. Not too confident about that one. They asked me a question about Christian nationalism.

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To be honest with you, I don't even quite know what that means. I'm just trying to discover what does that even mean. It's being kicked around.

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But if you mean, if the definition of that term is that we believe we're trying to make every nation

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Christian, then my answer, this is very rigorous, hopefully very sound.

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My answer is, duh. Matthew 28, 18 through 20.

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Go disciple the nations, teach them to obey. Are we working in the world to make every single nation obedient to Jesus Christ in every area of life?

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It's in the Great Commission. We are discipling the nations, teaching them to obey

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Jesus. Well, who's contained in that? Everybody that's in the nations. All of them.

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Are you saying Jesus has authority in every area of life? He provides the definitions over everything?

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Yes. He's the king of kings. Jesus is on his throne, putting all of his enemies under his feet.

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His last enemy is going to be death. That's coming. That's future. Right now, it's every other enemy.

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And as I always say, before you get pompous about that, you were one. And you've been put under his feet in subjection to him salvificly.

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But number two is Jesus is the king. He has all authority. Number three, government is to be

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God's servant. Romans 13. Very important because this is used to abuse Christians today who resist forms of tyranny and violations of God's law.

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Romans 13 is prescriptive, not descriptive. In other words, it's not describing what government always does.

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They're God's servants. No. It's prescriptive. The role of government is to be the deacon, the servant of God.

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Which God? The true God. Not the servant of some other God. That's the role of government. And so since Jesus is the king and since government is supposed to be his servant, we rightly call every magistrate to obey

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God's law. Next point. Legislators and politicians are dealing in law.

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Get this point and you'll understand a very important foundational point, brothers and sisters. So catch this. Legislators and politicians are dealing in law.

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Therefore, they are dealing in the arena of moral oughts. They are telling people what they ought or ought not do.

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Therefore, Jesus has authority over this conversation. When a politician or a legislator says, you ought to do this, we're going to make this law, they are dealing in the area of moral oughts.

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They are dealing in the area of moral oughts and law, and Jesus is the king over that conversation.

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And therefore, Christians have to speak in this arena. This isn't about politics. This isn't about republicanism.

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It's not about any of that. Conservatism. This is about the gospel and the kingship of Jesus Christ.

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This is about calling our world to come to obey Jesus, to trust in Jesus, to receive his salvation, and to walk with him.

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Next point. God is concerned with justice. He is immutable. Let me just speak to this because this is a key issue.

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And I do believe one of the premier areas of impotence in the modern day evangelical church is the loss of this truth.

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One of the great areas of impotence in the modern day church is in this issue. We act like God is changeable, that he changes.

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God says in his word, he's the Lord, he does not change. God is immutable. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

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And in God's word, you cannot miss it. I think, by the way, I think one of the great reasons that the modern day evangelical church misses this point is because they don't read their

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Bibles and they don't read the Old Testament, God's revelation. God says in his word,

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New Testament reference, by the way, in 2 Timothy 3 .16, God says all scripture, speaking of the

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Old Testament revelation, primarily, is theanoustos. It is breathed out by God.

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Profitable for teaching, for correction, training in righteousness. What was Paul referring there to Timothy?

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To the Old Testament revelation of God. It's able to do all these things. We shouldn't diminish that.

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And if we read, especially, the Old Testament revelation, you cannot ignore

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God's clear concern and stand for justice. God is a God of justice. I want to give these to you.

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You're not going to be able to run probably to these pastors right away. Just write down the references. I want to give you a solid foundation.

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God is a God of justice. He's concerned with justice, and he has not changed, brothers and sisters, with the new covenant.

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In the new covenant, God doesn't say, I'm no longer concerned with justice in the world. I no longer care about the fatherless.

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I no longer care about widows. I no longer care about justice in the courts. God is unchanging.

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He says in Micah 6 .8, He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the

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Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your

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God? Isaiah 30 .18, Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you.

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And therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice.

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Blessed are all those who wait for Him. Isaiah 1 .17, Learn to do good. Seek justice.

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Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause.

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Isaiah 61 .8, For I, the Lord, love justice. I hate robbery and wrong.

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I will faithfully give them their recompense, and I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Psalm 33 .5,

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He loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of the steadfast love of the

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Lord. Psalm 106 .3, Blessed are they who observe justice, who do righteousness at all times.

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Deuteronomy 32 .4, The rock, His work is perfect. For all

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His ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is

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He. Leviticus 19 .5, You shall do no injustice in court.

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You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.

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Zechariah 7 .9, Thus says the Lord of hosts, Render true judgments. Show kindness and mercy to one another.

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Proverbs 28 .5, Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the

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Lord understand it completely. Isaiah 56 .1, Thus says the

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Lord, Keep justice and do righteousness. For soon my salvation will come and my deliverance be revealed.

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Psalm 89 .14, Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne.

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Steadfast love and faithfulness go before you. This is a powerful one here.

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Proverbs 21 .3, Listen to this one. To do righteousness and justice, to do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the

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Lord than sacrifice. How concerned is God with justice and righteousness?

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It means more to Him than your sacrifices. Deuteronomy 16 .20,

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Justice and only justice you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the

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Lord your God has given you. Deuteronomy 27 .19, Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow, and all the people shall say amen.

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That's a good word to give to professing Christian legislators, right? Here it is again.

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Cursed be anyone who perverts justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow, and all the people shall say amen.

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And here it is. Isaiah 51 .4, Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation, for a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples.

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My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples.

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The coastlands hope for me, and for my arm they wait. Think about that, because that's us.

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Did you hear it? That's us. God's promise, God's promise about this messianic king, about what he's going to do in the world.

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Hear it again. Give attention to me, my people, and give ear to me, my nation, for a law will go out from me, and I will set my justice for a light to the peoples.

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My righteousness draws near, my salvation has gone out, and my arms will judge the peoples. The coastlines hope for me, and for my arm they wait.

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We're there now, brothers and sisters. That's what God is doing in the world. But there's some verses, and I have in no way exhausted it in terms of God's concern for justice.

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Isaiah chapter one is where I'd love for you to sit this week. I'm not going to read that all right now because of time, but I want you to read it.

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Many of you guys have heard me read that before. I read a portion of it just a moment ago, but God actually tells his people in Isaiah chapter one, think about it for a moment,

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I want you to embrace this. It's very important to consider and to apply to ourselves as the people of God. He was speaking to them, truly, but there was the gathering of God's people, and his heart for that circumstance hasn't changed.

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He tells his people that all of their sacrifices, everything that they're doing is an abomination to him.

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He says all the stuff that they're doing in terms of their church life and their religious ritual, they looked externally like they were just fine.

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I mean, they were going to church, they were doing the sacrifices, they were looking very religious, and God says that he was weary of all of that, and he says that their hands were filled with blood.

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And he tells them that they need to come to him for forgiveness, and they were to seek justice, correct oppression, and to bring justice to the fatherless.

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He didn't want their worship. He didn't want their rituals. He didn't want their prayers if there was injustice all around them that they were engaging in and doing nothing about.

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He says don't bother with the worship. Don't bring it. It's hypocrisy. It's pretend.

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I don't want it. Don't pray to me. Don't sacrifice to me. I don't want any of it because you sit in injustice.

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Your hands are filled with blood. And so he says to them, stop. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good.

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Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. That's the famous portion of scripture where God actually tells his people, come let us reason together, says the

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Lord, though your sins are as scarlet, they should be white as snow. That's in the context of him telling his people, abandon all that.

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Come back to me and start doing this, or I don't want your worship. Don't even bring it to me.

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Next, let's talk about the first point in terms of our move into the world with the proclamation first and foremost of the supremacy of Christ and the goodness of his gospel.

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First point in terms of human beings in the womb. Biblically speaking, how should we see this?

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The very first point, if you're writing it down, taking notes in terms of building a solid foundation, here it is.

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The first point is that human beings are unique. They're made in God's image and are creatures of God.

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Human beings are unique, are made in God's image, and are creatures of God.

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Now, we can't spend all day today exhausting this in the scriptures, but I'll just give you some premier verses that I think are helpful in this conversation.

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In terms of thinking about it biblically, this isn't very hard to demonstrate, but a biblical perspective,

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Psalm 139, 13 through 16, for you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb.

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There's a psalmist talking about his identity, and he says that God knit him together in where?

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His mother's womb. So his identity, his identity, me, you knit me together in my mother's womb.

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There is uniqueness there. There is value there. There is dignity there.

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There is special creation there. And of course, everyone knows this verse, but it's relevant to the conversation.

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Jeremiah 1 .5, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born,

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I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. Of course, we know this is Jeremiah's unique experience in terms of God speaking to Jeremiah, but think about the context.

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Jeremiah, an image bearer of God, like all of us, formed in his womb, therefore knit together in the mother's womb by God.

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And God says about Jeremiah, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

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Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. There is special creation there of God.

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See, here's the problem in our culture today. We have defied the creator creation distinction.

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And in scripture, we see that God is the creator where the creatures and in particular image bearers of God, human beings, are unique amongst all of God's creative purpose and plan.

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In other words, we're not like chickens or dogs or rocks.

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You see, think about for a second now, this is really important. People who defy the creator creation distinction, they can't say what

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I just said, not with any meaning. They can't justify it. If you take the common humanist, secular, atheistic, agnostic perspective of today, then you cannot say with justification of any meaning that human beings are any different than snails, horses, dogs, or rocks.

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Human beings are just stardust, other aspects of a universe that didn't have them in minds.

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You're cosmic accidents as what's a Dan Barker calls human beings, cosmic broccoli.

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That's it. There is no difference. There are no distinctions. Ultimately, there are any meaning. And so of course, when you reject the creator creation distinction, of course, child sacrifice makes sense.

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What's the difference between killing a chicken and a human being? No difference morally. What's the difference between killing the human being and destroying broccoli?

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No real difference, both cosmic accidents. Do you see the problem? The common perspective being taught to all of our children and promulgated in our society makes human beings cosmic broccoli.

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Another one, Psalm 127, three through five, children are a heritage from the

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Lord, offspring, a reward from Him. Children are a heritage from the

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Lord, offspring, a reward from God.

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Genesis 127, so God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God, He created them, male and female,

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He created them. There is the foundation that gives you a meaningful justification for value and human dignity.

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We are made in the imago dei, in the image of God. That's what makes human beings unique.

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And that's what makes us, that's what makes it necessary for us to protect all human beings.

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And by the way, you want to destroy the nonsense being promulgated across our society today in terms of critical race theory and all this nonsense trying to get people divided against one another.

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Here's what the Bible teaches, every one of us made in the imago dei, every single one of us, we're the same and we come from the same parents.

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So all your racism is stupid. It's an abomination and Christians need to abandon it in the gutter.

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People who highlight it will answer for it. We are the same, each and every single one of us, human beings and every human being, no matter the color, no matter the size, no matter the social circumstances, deserves our respect and value and protection.

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I don't care what color you are. I don't care what size you are. I don't care what your deficiencies are.

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You are in the image of God and you must be protected. Another verse,

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Job 31, 15. This is powerful. Did not he who made me in the womb make them?

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Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?

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Psalm 22, 10. From birth I was cast on you from my mother's womb. You have been my

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God. Biblically speaking, there's a foundation. We haven't exhausted it, but there is at least the nuts and bolts foundational.

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That's the second, that's the first part. Human beings are unique, are made in God's image and are creatures of God. Number two, the second point foundationally, you shall not murder.

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Exodus 20, 13. You shall not murder. God commands against murder.

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What is murder? Biblically speaking, we could define it as the unjustified killing of a human being.

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See, the Bible isn't confused on the issue of killing. Sometimes killing is justified. Sometimes killing is justified.

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An example would be somebody breaks into your house while you're sleeping to kill your entire family.

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They attempt to do that, kill them back. That's justified killing.

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And I would say in a circumstance like that, that kind of killing glorifies God. Why? Because you're loving your neighbors.

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You're loving your families, protecting them against somebody who is acting like a beast, acting like an animal.

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So killing in the Bible can be justified. It can be justified. However, God in Exodus 20, verse 13 says, you shall not murder.

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That is to engage in unjustified taking of human life. And of course, modern definitions of this are exactly the same.

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They are unjustified killing of a human being with malice of forethought. In other words, you're planning ahead of time to do this, and it's unjustified.

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The unjustified killing of a human being. And brothers and sisters, that is supremely what abortion is.

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It is. We see it all the time when our team is out there. We've been out there. We preach. We beg.

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We plead with these mothers and fathers. And oftentimes, they will brag about what they're doing.

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They are not victims. Stop believing the lie the pro -life industry has taught you.

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They are not victims. They know what they're doing, and they go in at times with us pleading, we'll adopt your baby.

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We'll give you everything you need. And they'll say things like, I can never give my baby up for adoption, and they go in to kill their child.

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Or they laugh about what they're about to do or what they have done.

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Now, brothers and sisters, that is not every woman who walks in there. Some go in, they're completely broken, and they do it.

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Now, by the way, I'm going to speak to this very, very important issue. It's so important. People have said we can't criminalize and outlaw abortion because we know so many mothers who have done this, and we love those women.

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Brothers and sisters, there are women in this church right now who have had multiple abortions, and they are saved by Jesus Christ.

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They are forgiven, and their guilt is taken away. We are for every woman who has had an abortion.

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We want them to know Christ. There is no guilt. There is no shame. It doesn't exist.

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It was done away with at the cross. But brothers and sisters, we don't handle other issues of crime like we've been speaking to the issue of abortion.

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Well, we don't want to criminalize this because it would make mothers guilty of a crime. Do you talk that way about theft?

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Do you talk that way about sex trafficking? Do you talk that way about murder in other contexts?

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It's an emotional appeal that the pro -aborts and unfortunately the pro -life industry has sold to us.

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How do you deal with the issue of theft? Preach the gospel to the thief and make sure they pay it back.

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How do you deal with the issues of crime in your society? Of course, we want them all to know the gospel, but we also say, and you need to pay for what you've done.

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God's concerned with justice. Amen? And so very important, murder is the unjustified killing of a human being, and of course in the modern definition with malice aforethought.

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Third point, therefore abortion is murder according to God's law. So when we stand outside of abortion mills with the sign that says, babies are murdered here,

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I want you to understand something. Praise God that movement has changed the conversation in a dramatic way.

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People understand now that the church is involved and that the church is being honest about it. We're calling what it is. We're not pulling punches.

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What are we doing? We're saying it's a human being that's an indisputable biblical and biological fact.

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You are killing that human being in an unjustified manner. That is murder.

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And by the way, I can't win a mother who has killed her child to Christ if I'm going to lie to her about her sin.

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Understand that's very important. If we want mothers who have actually had abortions engaged in them to know

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Christ, they have to embrace their guilt just like you have. Did you and I walk before God's throne and coming to Christ lying to him about our guilt?

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I'm not really guilty. That was no big deal. What did you do when you came to Christ? You were broken over your sin, were you not?

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Wasn't your heart broken? Didn't you come to God laid bare saying, I deserve hell, I deserve your wrath, and I want

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Christ? You see, if we don't tell mothers the true nature of the sin, we're not bringing the law of God to bear so they can come to Jesus, so they can know his grace and his love.

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Abortion is murder according to God's law. Now, biologically speaking, I'm going to try to do this as quickly as possible again, but I want to give it to you all in one sermon, not two.

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Biologically speaking, of course, we know that there is no neutrality, and we know that according to a consistent philosophical system, only the biblical worldview could demand or could, sorry, provide a foundation for science and investigation and logic and rules of reasoning and all the rest.

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That's a different conversation, but talking about this in terms of how people would want to talk about it scientifically, brothers and sisters, you win.

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We win this argument. It cannot be disputed to the degree that I could spend an entire hour in here with you reading the quotes from pro -abortionists and pro -choicers who acknowledge freely, gladly today,

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I know it's a human being, and I still think we should be able to kill it. There's no problem today with them even admitting

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I know it's human, and ethically, I think a mother should be able to kill her child. That's where we're at in the debate.

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We win the debate in the area of science. So, biological science, there is no question, no question.

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I'll just read you a couple things here. A quote from some scientific journals, this one from Nature, January 28th, 2010, 463 -554, the life cycle of mammals begins when a sperm enters the egg.

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This is from a scientific paper, Cell Tissue Resolution, March 20th, 2012, 349.

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Fertilization is the process by which male and female, sperm and egg, unite to produce a genetically distinct individual.

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This is from Kaluger and Kaluger in Human Development, The Span of Life, page 28 -29.

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In that fraction of a second, when the chromosomes form pairs, the sex of the new child will be determined.

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Hereditary characteristics received from each parent will be set, and a new life will have begun.

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In other words, at that spark, at that moment of light, have you seen it by the way? Have you seen the videos of that moment when the sperm and the egg meet?

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Have you seen it? If you haven't seen it, go and watch it. I don't know, go watch it on Rumble since YouTube stinks, okay? Or wherever people are migrating to at this point.

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But when you see that, when you see it, literally we can watch it now. The moment that it connects and it forms together, you see a spark, literally lights up life in that moment.

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And in that moment, biologically speaking, you, the you that you are now in terms of the characteristics, all of the genetic information and DNA, the language, here it is, the language that God spoke to make you distinctly you is there.

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So what's the difference biologically from the moment of conception to where you're at today? Well, it's the difference of degree that we're all changing through constantly.

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This is from Beck, human embryology, Blackwell Scientific Publications.

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It says it should always be remembered that many organs still not completely developed by full term and birth should be regarded only as an incident in the whole developmental process.

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As an incident in the whole developmental process. Clark Edward and Corliss Patton's Human Embryology, McGraw, page 30.

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It is the penetration of the ovum by a sperm and the resulting mingling of nuclear material each brings to the union that constitutes the initiation of the life of a new individual.

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The Developing Human, Clinically Oriented Embryology, fifth edition, Moore, Saunders Company, page one.

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Although it is customary to divide human development into prenatal and postnatal periods, it is important to realize that birth is merely a dramatic event during development resulting in a change of environment.

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In other words, biologically speaking, it's human life. It's human life from conception.

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The only difference is degree. Prenatal Care, U .S. Department of Landrum -Shettles,

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MD, PhD, very important, was the first scientist to succeed at in vitro fertilization. Here's the quote.

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The zygote is human life. There is one fact that no one can deny.

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Human beings begin at conception. So biologically speaking, there is no controverting this.

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Understand that? When Rowe lied and said what's in the womb is potential human life, at the time, maybe that's a little difficult to demonstrate in terms of getting into the cells and showing them before their face, right?

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We know what God's word says, but maybe at the time, it would have been hard to really present what we have today, biologically speaking, in terms of putting it right under their noses.

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What we know is in the womb is human life, not potential human life. It's human life.

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The only difference is degree. Now, I want you guys to memorize this because it's a powerful argument and it's easy to remember because it comes by way of an acrostic.

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SLED, S -L -E -D. What's the difference between that moment of conception and where all of us are today or where we're going to be?

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And the answer is SLED. Size. Size. Very small. Really small.

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Well, as I often say to this question, if we're going to kill people because they are small, some of you are in trouble.

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Let's be honest. It's a foolish reason to say I can kill a human being because of their size. It's a small human.

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Where's the cutoff point? Is it 4 '9"? Like, what is the cutoff?

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Size. You can't kill human beings because they're small. That's ignorance.

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It's unscientific. It's stupid. Size, level of development, environment, degree of dependence.

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Next, level of development. Somebody would say, yeah, I know it's human, but it's not fully developed yet.

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Guess what? Neither is my one -year -old. Neither is my 12 -year -old.

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Neither are six -year -olds. And you know what? There's all kinds of stories. I won't even dare right now to bring them into this conversation from this poll, but there are all kinds of stories just from the last five years of our experience in this country of mothers who killed their small children.

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Six -years -old, eight -years -old, four -years -old, ten -years -old. They were not fully developed.

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Can those mothers walk into courts before judges and say, your honor, I have the right to kill this child because though they were human, they were not fully developed?

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It's a very, very poor argument that would never stand up in a court of law. Next, environment. People say, well,

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I can kill this child because it's in my womb. Well, that's an argument about environment.

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We can kill other human beings based on location, innocent human beings because of their location.

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The difference, biologically speaking, from where they are to where they will be is a matter of birth, right?

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It's talking about coming into the world. You can't kill somebody based upon environments when it's an innocent human being we're talking about.

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The next is the degree of dependence. People will often say, yes, I know it's human, but it's dependent upon the mother.

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Well, brothers and sisters, there's lots of children in here right now. We've got babies who are still nursing.

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They're still dependent upon their mothers. What would happen, brothers and sisters, if a nursing mother killed that child?

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What would happen? She would go to jail. She'd be brought up on charges. But she couldn't argue before a judge, your honor,

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I have a right to kill this child, this developing human being because it was fully dependent upon me.

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Trust me, look at my bank account. My 16 -year -old is dependent upon me. It's overwhelming.

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But also, brothers and sisters, human beings go in and out of degrees of dependence upon other human beings their whole lives.

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What about when we have elderly folks who get to a place where they can't take care of themselves any longer and we have to care for them?

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We can't kill old people because they're dependent upon others for their survival. Or what about the people today at this very moment that are in hospitals and we have to use machines to keep them alive and keep them breathing?

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What is amazing about hospitals is for some reason, hospitals see a human being as worthy of protection and they work for the preservation of human life.

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Isn't that amazing? And we do everything we can to protect life and to actually sustain life.

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But the argument coming from the pro -aborts is what? Well, it's dependent upon me. So are one -year -olds and five -year -olds and six -year -olds and 10 -year -olds and 16 -year -olds and 80 -year -olds.

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Dependent upon human beings. You cannot kill a human being in an unjustified manner because they are dependent upon another human being.

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Also, please hear this, less than 2 % of all abortions in our country.

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This is a big one. Hear it. We're almost done. We really are. Tail end of this one, less than 2 % are for rape, incest, or life of the mother.

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Can I just, can I help you with this one? Leftists, pro -aborts, pro -choicers have learned to use language as a weapon and they've learned to play with people's emotions.

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One thing, of course, I know I'd love to give him the gospel. I want to have a debate with Ben Shapiro. I do.

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But one thing I love that he says, it's very true. Facts don't care about your feelings. Facts don't care about your feelings.

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And when we're talking about the murder of children, we need to be very ready to approach the emotional argumentation used to keep abortion legal.

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People will say, what about rape, incest, life of the mother? Brothers and sisters, let's do it. Less than 2 % of all abortions are for rape, incest, life of the mother.

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So ask the person you're talking to, are you okay with us criminalizing all abortions except for rape, incest, life of the mother?

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What do you think you hear from them? What do you think you hear? Because they want abortion at will. It's an emotional appeal to tug on your heartstrings.

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But let's do it. Less than 2 % of all abortions are for rape, incest, life of the mother. Okay. Ask the person, what's wrong with rape?

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I know what's wrong with rape. I have a Christian worldview. God's actually spoken to the issue of rape. And he says, if somebody engages in rape, actually guilty of rape, they deserve to die.

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My worldview says, kill the rapist, kill the perpetrator. Not me, the state. A good court, a great trial, justice, and execute the person that thinks that they actually can do something as heinous as rape in this world.

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Biblical worldview gives me a reason to believe that it's wrong and abomination to rape. But ask the person, why do you believe it's wrong to rape?

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And what are they going to respond with? What do you mean? Rape? Are you stupid or something? I'm telling you what

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I've heard. Is something wrong with your head? Rape is the violation of another person. It's doing things to their body that you have no permission to do.

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Tell them, welcome to the pro -life movement. To argue in the case of rape is to use the very foundation of my argument.

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Stop stealing from my worldview. That's my emotional appeal.

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You are not allowed to do things to somebody's body against their will according to my worldview.

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What's amazing about the issue of rape is you talk to most people today who are pro -aborts and they say, rape, you know, what about rape?

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We should be able to have an abortion in the case of rape. Isn't it interesting in my worldview, I believe that the perpetrator deserves the death penalty.

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You believe the child deserves the death penalty for the sins of his father. And I can tell you right now, there are tons of people alive in this world that are wonderful, who are the products of rape.

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I don't think we should kill them. Next, incest. Very simple. I grew up with friends who were the products of incestuous relationships through no fault of their own.

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And I don't think we should kill them. Next, life of the mother. This is a powerful, strong, emotional argument people use.

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Life of the mother. Here's the issue. In the instances where the life of the mother is really at stake, what we should be talking about is a rescue operation.

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If you go to the hospital, doctors tend to work towards the preservation of life. Luke's own mother was in a situation where the mother was told, your life's in danger.

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And Luke's mother is alive today because they didn't try to kill her. And Luke's here today because they didn't try to kill her.

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And Luke's kids are here today because they didn't try to kill her. When we talk about life of the mother today, many doctors say we can preserve human life even when the life of the mother is at stake.

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And when we can do nothing, we are talking about a car hanging off a cliff with a moral dilemma.

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You have the opportunity in that moment to save one life. That's a moral dilemma because of catastrophic circumstances.

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But what are you not doing? You're not saying, destroy life, kill, destroy life, kill everybody.

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You're saying rescue, preserve human life. And isn't it interesting that in the cases, many cases where we've even had in our own experiences in life where you have the life of the mother, truly something is wrong.

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Where do people go in those cases? Hospitals with doctors who try to preserve human life.

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People will say outside the abortion mills to the mothers. We'll say, we will adopt, adopt.

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And they'll say, I couldn't get my baby up for abortion. And they'll go in and kill their child. We've heard that so many times we've forgotten.

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People will say things like my body, my choice. If you believe that, by the way,

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I actually believe that argument. I think it's a good argument for personal liberty that if I, people should,

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I really, this might sound weird. I think that if somebody wants to cut their fingers off, they should be permitted to do it.

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I think that we need to get them help, but it's their body. If they want to put a unicorn thing in the middle of their forehead, permanently fixed there,

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I think we should try to help them and talk them through it. But if they want to put a unicorn thing on their head, they should be permitted to do it.

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Their body, their choice. People should be allowed to be stupid. As long as it doesn't affect somebody else and hurt somebody else.

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But in principle, the argument, my body, my choice, is actually an argument for bodily autonomy.

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And the bodily autonomy argument is actually a pro life argument because what are we saying? The body inside your body is not your body.

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It is distinct from you. It is a unique human being. And if you truly believe my body, my choice, then your baby has that right as well.

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Repent of your inconsistency. My body, my choice is a pro -life argument because it involves another body.

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Bodily autonomy. Somebody will say this. These are so silly. Aren't these silly? They're so silly.

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It's just a clump of cells. And so are you. Right? Right?

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It's just a clump of cells. That's silly. We all are clumps of cells. They'll say it doesn't look human.

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Well, they said that about blacks and Jews. They called Jews parasites.

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Congratulations on turning the clock back on public morality. They'll say people miscarry all the time.

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You know what's amazing about that circumstance in terms of miscarriages is we grieve.

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That's the proper response. Isn't it amazing that when we have to deal with that even in our own community, we grieve.

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There's tears because there's a love for that life and a trust in God and His purpose.

01:00:26

But isn't it amazing that mothers will grieve over the loss of a child? People will say the

01:00:35

Supreme Court has ruled. Well, A, Congress makes law, not the

01:00:42

Supreme Court. B, if you truly believe that the Supreme Court is a supreme being,

01:00:48

I'm going to point you to the Dred Scott case where the Supreme Court was actually upholding the issue of slavery over again.

01:00:56

So people were trying to do this, free slaves. How's that for your supreme being? Next, there is federal law, federal law about marijuana.

01:01:08

There is current federal law about marijuana, you know that, and court rulings and all the rest.

01:01:15

And isn't it amazing that California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Arizona, D .C.,

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Colorado, obviously, they're all just, I mean, you can't, you can't go, some of these places, you can't walk down the street any longer without getting a contact high.

01:01:33

And people recognize, they'll say, oh, you know, Roe has ruled. Well, brothers and sisters,

01:01:38

Congress creates legislation, not the Supreme Court. That's how our country works. And we've already demonstrated that states have the nerve, the strength, and the ability to resist the tyranny of a higher court or government decision when they are seeking the welfare or benefit of their own citizens.

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Isn't it amazing? We have the courage as legislators, magistrates, to actually tell people, you're allowed to smoke up,

01:02:05

I don't care what that law is, but we won't protect human life. It's cowardice, ultimately.

01:02:11

I want to leave you with this verse, Isaiah 10. The set of verses.

01:02:18

Isaiah chapter 10. Please go, I want you to see it.

01:02:25

Isaiah chapter 10. I'll give you a moment to get there. I want to remind you of how

01:02:30

Isaiah started. Isaiah started with a condemnation on the people of God and their worship, all their sacrifices, all their religious rituals, because they would not seek justice.

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They would not correct oppression. Their hands were stained with blood, filled with blood.

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That's how it started. We're 10 chapters in, and I want you to hear this.

01:02:59

Verse 1. Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and the writers who keep writing oppression, to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of my people of their rights, that widows may be their spoil and that they may make the fatherless their prey.

01:03:27

Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and the writers who keep writing oppression. Brothers and sisters, woe to every legislator.

01:03:36

Woe to every legislator who writes oppression and iniquitous decrees.

01:03:45

It is an iniquitous decree, and it is oppression, to say that we can kill human beings in the womb just so long as they aren't older than 18 weeks.

01:03:55

It is an iniquitous decree to say we can kill them just so long as they don't have a heartbeat.

01:04:02

What do we still have in those cases? Human beings being slaughtered, being killed every single time.

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It is a regulation like that over abortion. It is an iniquitous decree. It is oppressive upon fatherless children.

01:04:18

What we are talking about in the womb, brothers and sisters, make no mistake about it, is an image bearer of God. It's a human being.

01:04:24

It's worthy of our protection, and please hear this, it's a fatherless child. It's a fatherless child.

01:04:33

Protect them. Let's pray. Father, we come before you and ask you to bless what our hands have been set on.

01:04:43

Grant to us grace. Lord, we don't seek any glory in this. We don't want our name to be remembered.

01:04:48

We want your name to be glorified, your name to be remembered, and we want you to establish justice.

01:04:54

You've, Lord, said to correct oppression. That's what we're asking to do.

01:05:00

You've said to seek justice, and that's what we're asking to do for your glory.

01:05:08

We want you to be glorified. We want your name to be made great. Lord, for the glory of your son, father, and his kingdom, establish justice.