Abortion: Modern American Sacrament

Let it be according to your will and that he would be able to present a solid base for us to be able to use with in the public marketplace. So bless this.

Time now and may you be good in it. In Jesus' name, amen.

Andrew Soncrant is an elder over at Apologia Church in I guess South Jordan, right? Yeah. Where you guys are located and I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you about where he goes to church. And so he has, along with people from their church, had an incredible ministry on the streets.

And so maybe he's going to tell us a little bit about that. But the information we were hoping to do this weekend, which he's going to do, we're hoping that it will stimulate you to get involved because there's a lot of things going on in the political marketplace.

So let's give Andrew a hand for being here today.

Thank you, brother. Alright guys, yeah, I'm honored to be here today. It is a sad topic that we are going to discuss today. And yeah, the goal of this conversation really is to help spur you on into good works because the truth of the situation is that the Christian has the answer to what is needed with abortion.

There's a spiritual problem that people have and it's called false worship and false worship always leads to human sacrifice. Whether it be people who think that their own good works will be presented before God one day or that the blood of innocent, the innocent, will cover them and bring them comfort in their earthly life.

Whether it's one of the two, false worship will always bring human sacrifice in some shape or form. Okay? And what's the goal of the Christian? Right? To tell people the truth. What is true worship? True worship is knowing God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, that God sent his son to die on the cross for our sins to bring us comfort and to bring us peace in this life.

Abortion is antithetical to the gospel. It is the anti-gospel. And it's been going on, at least the serpent has been trying to do this since the promise given to us in Genesis 3 of the one who was going to come from the seed of the woman to crush the head of the serpent.

So we're gonna get into that. Like Eric said, my name is Andrew Songkrant. I'm a pastor at Apologia Church, Utah. It's actually right down the road near 106 in Redwood. We meet at the South Jordan Community Center on Sundays at 10 a .m.

I'm also a co-host of a podcast called Cultish in which Jeremiah Roberts, my co-host, along with myself, talk about the cults and when we focus on exposing the kingdom of the cults with the light of the gospel.

And we don't want to be confused. Abortion and child sacrifice is inherently linked to the postmodern death cult in America. It's true. They seek to redefine who God is, redefine what life is, redefine what it means to be human, and they sacrifice their own children and tell you to do the same in order to bring comfort.

So I was honored that Eric reached out to me and asked me if I'd like to give a presentation on abortion during Pro-Life Saturday here at the Utah Christian Research Center. And what's funny is he actually asked me in his initial email, he was like, have you ever given a presentation on abortion before?

I never answered the question because I never have. All I said was like, I would love to do it. So thank you, Eric, for the experience and sorry about that. But I'm excited to be here. So to give you some background on my experience with regards to the topic of abortion, I started attending Apology of Church in Arizona in 2017.

And my very first conviction for going to Apology of Church in Arizona in terms of evangelism was to start doing abortion mill evangelism. To give you context of myself, I grew up in an Arminian church, and that's okay.

I'm now reformed. But in terms of my theology, I believed, and this is so bad, and this is what really spurred me on to abortion evangelism. I believed that abortion was wrong, okay? But I took the stance telling myself that if God doesn't come down and stop people from having abortions, why should I?

I'll give them my opinion if they ask, but I don't need to go out there. Bad theology, right? We have laws against murder for a reason. And those laws reflect the character of God. And once that finally clicked in my brain, it spurred me on to want to go out there to tell people the truth, right?

I was once an advocate unknowingly for the murder of unborn children. So when I first got convicted and I went to Apology of Church in Arizona in 2017, I wanted to go to the abortion mill. So my wife, myself, and my three-year-old daughter made it a point every Saturday to go to the Glendale Planned Parenthood on Saturday mornings holding signs and pleading to parents to spare the lives of their children.

And to be honest, the first drive that I took out there, I lived in Maricopa City at the time, which is about 16 miles south of Tempe, and I drove all the way to Glendale. So I don't know if you've ever been to Phoenix, but it is huge and it is massive.

It was at least like a 60-mile drive to get there every Saturday. So imagine the first time going, right? I was in spiritual war, spiritual war. I was absolutely terrified. So it was my wife, my daughter was three.

So she's just like, yeah, let's say babies. You know what I mean? So praise God for that. The courage of children is, is unbelievable. I'll tell you that right now. But I'll never forget the tension that we could feel in the car.

We knew that we were stepping into a war zone. It was a battle of worship within our world. That's the truth. And even today, I woke up at four o 'clock this morning, and I was in intense amount of spiritual warfare before doing this.

Even, even right now, I'm nervous, right? Because what are we doing? We're coming face to face with the modern idol of this world. And I want to spur God's people on in order to make a difference. And the enemy doesn't want that.

The enemy wants the anti-gospel. So to this day, even eight years later, it is still also terrifying to stand outside of Planned Parenthood. And it should be. We go every single Wednesday to the Planned Parenthood downtown in Utah to try to spur people on, you know, to be convicted by the power of the gospel to not sacrifice their children on the altar of comfort, preaching the gospel that God may also open their eyes and ears to the truth.

And by God's grace, we don't really count numbers on how many babies God has saved. But what I know off the top of my head, at least from 2024, from being out there, there's at least four different babies that I know of that have been, that are alive today.

I've got to hold one of them, actually my own arms. And the reality is, is in 2017, all the way up till last year, I had never actually held a baby that I was directly involved with. I don't know how many, maybe the Lord has saved because cars can pass by.

And if they see people out there, they're like, Oh, I don't want to go. Praise God for that. But it's, it's, it's, it keeps you very humble to understand that, honestly, I have nothing to do with it. It's the gospel is the power of God for salvation.

It's the truth that convicts the hearts and minds of men. And I would be in the same position of them as them, but be the grace of God. But my hope today is to bring awareness to the gravity of abortion and the wickedness that it is.

So that in your hearts, you can contemplate on how you can help contribute to the fight against child murder here in the state of Utah. So be not confused. Abortion is a grave evil. It is antithetical to the gospel.

It's the savior of the West. It's the sacrifice of blood for the sake of comfort. It is the fruit of evil within the hearts of men, which leads to methodical methods of ending life in the womb. It is the dismemberment of babies, the discarding of human life left to rot and die.

It is blood offering upon an altar in which the majority of our society seeks comfort and peace. Abortion is murder, and it is child sacrifice revisited. We're told that there is nothing new under the sun from the second wisest man ever to live, Solomon.

First wisest was Christ, right? From the Canaanite pagans sacrificing their children to Moloch to the Mayans slitting the throats of young ones and watching heads roll down their pyramids in honor of their sun gods, we find that abortion is the modern American sacrament, which is propagated from the postmodern death cult of progressivism, which plagues our society today.

And as we stand here today, I'll bring us face to face with that idol. And the call is to be like Gideon, right? To be like Gideon. There's a monument, there's an altar within our gates, within the land of God that we ought to tear down.

The altar of Baal and the Asherah within our midst dwells within God's territory, and our job as Christians is to come face to face with the idols. And regardless of what the populace thinks, the majority, regardless how the men of the world will stand against us for tearing down their idols, we must fear God rather than men.

We must fear God rather than men. And unlike Gideon, who allowed his father to take the blame, we ought to stand face to face with the evil of this world. So please understand this is a battle that God's people have been involved with ever since the promise of the one who is to come from the virgin who will crush the serpent's head.

So before we get into some of the modern arguments of abortion, I want to create, I don't even like to use the word really theology of human sacrifice or the theology of abortion, but I want to go back biblically to understand historically through God's word, what human sacrifice was.

So we can think about physically what people thought they were doing, but what was also going on behind the scenes in the waterless places. And by the waterless places, I mean the world of the devil, right?

The world of the devil. So think about this for a second, okay? In Genesis 3, we are to understand that the serpent understood that a child would be born who would one day reckon the serpent powerless.

It's in Genesis 3, right? The one who will come from the seed of the woman will crush the head of the serpent. The serpent was told face to face by God. In that moment, the one who was a murderer from the beginning sought to influence the hearts of men to kill their own children for from the womb would be the one who is to come crush the serpent's head.

Yet, we must understand it's not only the will of the serpent that causes men to kill their own children. It's not just the serpent's fault. The hearts of fallen men likewise in their enmity with God sought to kill their own children, right?

Both are at fault and both are judged for their wickedness. So let's develop now our understanding that biblical precedent for child sacrifice through this historical account of Satan, the serpent who tried to thwart God's redemptive plan.

We need to understand this because God had his redemptive plan before the Messiah, right? And then in the New Testament, the era in which we live today, God also has a redemptive plan. And the serpent is also trying to thwart that before the second coming of Christ.

So here in lies that biblical precedent. Let's start right after in Genesis chapter three, what do we find? Cain killed Abel. The first murder, Genesis chapter four detailed that what? The blood of the innocent cried out from the ground for justice, the blood of Abel.

Fast forward, Genesis chapter six, what are we told? The wickedness of men's hearts were continually evil prior to the flood that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful. Whether you believe that those are Nephilim in terms of like an angel-human hybrid, or whether it be the line of Seth, the godly sons with the daughters of men who were not of the line of Seth, regardless of what you believe.

There was something at play trying to get the sons of God off of the map to destroy the seed. Then what do we find after the flood? The tower of Babel. We also then find Pharaoh's decree. This is one of the first ones that we see.

Pharaoh's decree for the death of the Israelite children in Exodus 1, 15 through 22. Why is that? Well, listen, God gave Abraham a prophecy. We can find it in Genesis 15, 13 through 14, where God tells Abraham that one day his offspring will be slaves for 400 years in a foreign land, but that they will one day be delivered from their slavery, and that nation will be judged.

Prior to that, in Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3, and even earlier in chapter 15, verses 1 through 6, that through the seed of Abraham, through his offspring, there will be one whom the descendants will be as numerous as the stars.

And in Galatians, we understand that that promise of the offspring is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. Yet think, during this time in the enslavement in Israel, there must have been some expectation of freedom, because there was a prophecy already given.

The people of God must have thought something, or they should have, at least, through some type of oral tradition, known the words of Abraham. There was an expectation of a Messiah, a deliverer. Though it wasn't Jesus Christ, we understand it now as a shadow of the one to come, a shadow of the true freedom of slavery we find in Christ as the people of God.

But the serpent still then sought to destroy God's people in God's redemptive plans. Do you think the serpent understood whether or not it was the Messiah yet? I don't know. But all I do know is he did want to kill their offspring, and so did Pharaoh.

So did Pharaoh. So the Pharaoh, in earthly fear, because what does the scripture tell us? The Pharaoh was afraid that the people of God, the Hebrews at that time, were multiplying out of control. He was like, they're going to overthrow us.

They're going to take over Egypt one day. So what does he do? He, he insists the law to kill the children. But the devil, in fear of the deliverer, influences Egypt through false worship in earthly religion, wants to kill the deliverer.

So man, as we are, we're always trying to make decisions on earthly matters through earthly things. False gods make false earthly promises for us, right? Kill the children so that your society will live.

Kill the people of God. Kill the people of God. The true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, mocked their false worship, and he thwarted the plans of the Pharaoh and that of the devil. It's actually quite beautiful what, what God did.

He, through all of the plagues, denounced every single one of their false gods. It's amazing. Though it was not the Messiah who led the Hebrews out of slavery, it indeed was a deliverer, again, a foreshadow of the one to come.

It was a reminder of the one who will, who will be born to whom, to him will be the obedience of the nations. And what happens as the Hebrews are entering into the promised land now, God warns them not to take part in the practices of the pagan nations.

And the pagan nations did specific things, and one of the abominations before God was that of child sacrifice. False worship begets human sacrifice, okay? Leviticus 18 .21, you shall not give any of your children to offer them to Moloch, and so profane the name of your God, I am the Lord.

Are you guys familiar with Moloch, the Canaanite deity? My shirt right here, I wore it for a very specific reason. That shows Moloch right there. Moloch was a false god, and essentially, if you take a look, it was an idol constructed out of, I don't know what type of metal there would have been back then.

However, it was massive. You see, his palms are faced up towards the sky, and the people at that time believed that if they were to offer their children on the altar of Moloch, Moloch would provide them with what?

Good crops, good life, rain, whatever it may be, okay? So what they would do is they would light a fire in this hollowed, underneath this hollowed out idol until it would glow. It would glow. And then the people would bring their children, maybe even their firstborn children, and they would offer them on the molten hands of Moloch, and the children would lighten fire in front of the mothers and fathers, and the screaming would be so loud that they actually constructed massive drums about 10 feet in diameter that they would bang and bang and bang to drown out the screams of dying children.

And what was the promise? Give us your child so all will be well with you. Give us the child. Give us the child. What's the promise in Genesis chapter 3? The child who will deliver us. What does Satan want to do?

He wants to mock the promise by creating false worship, which begets human sacrifice to solve problems, rather than the sacrifice of God that will solve the problems. So what does God do? Again, Leviticus 18 .21.

Do not do that. Do not be like the pagans who are killing their children. Don't do it. Further warnings, if you want to write them down, are found in Deuteronomy 12 .31, Deuteronomy 18 .9 -10, and Deuteronomy 20 .17 -18.

What's interesting about Deuteronomy 18 as well, we find, look where we are in context, we're at the Utah Christian Research Center, we also find the warning against false prophets, right? If you presume to speak in the name of Yahweh, but you speak presumptuously, and the one thing doesn't come to pass, you are a false prophet.

But there's a whole list of abominations before God in Deuteronomy 18. Child sacrifice is one of them. Sorcery is another one. Divination. All of these things are inherently linked to one another. We find that, just a little tangent here, even with Mayan culture, Central American sun god worship, through sorcery, ayahuasca, psychedelic drug use, meeting a serpent god, telling them to sacrifice their children on the pyramid.

All of these things are inherently linked, my friends. Don't go to the son of God for forgiveness of sins. Sacrifice your own blood. Sacrifice your own blood for comfort. That's why God warns about it.

Interestingly, in like manner, the Lord of Glory tells us in Leviticus 18, 24 through 28, that the land will vomit out the inhabitants that practice the abominable sins before God. The land will spit them out.

If we think about our culture today, real quick, the fires going on in California, the massive floods that are happening within, over on the east coast, which happened earlier in 2024. Let us not forget that the God of the universe controls the weather.

He controls the weather. He controls the weather. And child sacrifice is something in our society that people don't want to give up. They don't want to give it up. God says the land will spit you out.

He doesn't like it. He doesn't like it. The blood of the innocent cries out from the ground for justice. But again, I want you to understand, and this is the theme we're going through right now, is that false worship begets child sacrifice.

Humanity seeks to solve their own problems through the works of their own hands, giving up their own children to what they would consider the greater good. So if just some of us kill our children on the hands of Molech, it'll just be better for everybody.

It'll be better for everybody. The devil and his demons take advantage of the wickedness of men's hearts, and they seek to influence worship in order to kill the children. And what was the goal? To try to kill the child of promise.

Try to kill the child of promise. Understand, the enemy of God does not get more power through false worship. Only God can receive worship. It's not like these people who go and sacrifice to demons are making demons puffed up and more powerful.

It's not the goal. The authority that the enemy has has been given to them by God, and they don't gain any more authority than that. They don't get puffed up by false worship. No, they just want you to kill your children.

They want you to kill your children, and back then kill the children so that the one who was to come to crush the head of the serpent wouldn't come to existence. It's the truth. Understand, the promise is that God would provide the sacrifice through the seed of the woman.

The enemy understands this and seeks to make man do the anti-gospel by providing their own human sacrifice to appease God. And when we're out there at Planned Parenthood, what are some of the preconceptions that maybe some of you guys might have of what goes on at Planned Parenthood?

Anyone have any ideas of what we do as a Christian standing outside of Planned Parenthood? Any idea? Yeah, a lot of praying. Sometimes people think that we just yell at people, you know, that we're just angry with people.

It couldn't be farther from the truth. Some of the first things we say to individuals, mind you, you got 30 seconds before they get in the door, is, how can we help you? We know people who will adopt your baby.

We have everything that you need so you don't have to kill your child. Do not sacrifice your child thinking it will bring you peace and comfort in your life. God sent his son to provide the sacrifice.

His blood was shed for the forgiveness of sins. Only his blood will bring you peace. Please let us help you. Turn to Christ. When the son sets you free, you are free indeed. Jesus says, let the little children come to me.

In Christ, you'll have life and life abundantly. These are the things we're telling them because these are the things that are true. Do not murder your child. The sorrows of those who go after other gods are multiplied.

That's what the Bible says. So going back now into the Old Testament, within the promised land, here's a foreshadow. The promised land is a foreshadow of what Christ owns today. He's the God of the earth, the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Let's go back to the shadow though. Now within the promised land, the Hebrews who are the people of God were told to take no part in child sacrifice. Furthermore, they were told what? To be the light to all the nations on how to act towards God.

They were to be a beacon of true worship to the world. They were. Yet we find detailed in Joshua and the book of Judges that as the Hebrews conquered the promised land, they did not do everything that God told them to do.

They just didn't do it. They did not utterly dispose of all the pagans within the land. They made deals with the pagan nations and even allowed them to live within their midst. Judges 2, 1 through 5 details the angel of the Lord confronting the people of Israel and telling them that since they did not uphold their covenant of conquest, that the gods of the Canaanites will be what?

A snare to them. They did not obey God when they entered into the promised land. Joshua was a victorious conqueror. Yes. And amen. But when you read the book of Judges, you will find that there was failure.

There was indeed failure within the people of God. But here's the theme I want you to understand right now. The promised land was plagued with child sacrifice and the people of God were called to what?

Eradicate it. Eradicate it. The promised land was to be the central root of where Israel was to be the light to all nations, a beacon of worship to the true God to make way for who? The Messiah. Over time though we find what?

The paganite gods did indeed become a snare to the people of God. Israel becomes corrupted. They fall prey to false worship and eventually they even sacrifice their own children to Molech under the hand of King Ahaz.

2 Kings 16 verse 3 states this. When he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, he even burned his son as an offering according to the despicable practices of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.

This verse refers to King Ahaz of Judah, who adopted the idolatrous and indomitable practices of the surrounding nations, including child sacrifice, which was explicitly forbidden by God. 2 Chronicles 28 verse 3.

And he made an offering in the valley of the son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel. Parallel history with Kings and Chronicles, right?

This passage also describes King Ahaz's actions, specifying that he carried out these sacrifices in the valley of the son of Hinnom, later associated with what we know as Gehenna, right? In Jerusalem a little valley outside of Jerusalem.

And that's a place notorious for idolatry and child sacrifice. So those are just two examples there from historical accounts in the Bible of kings, of a king in Jerusalem. But the heart of the matter remains true, right?

False worship begets child sacrifice. Why do you not sacrifice your child on the altar? Well, they have precedent. Abraham was told to bring who up to the mount, right? Isaac. And what did God do? He said, I don't want your child.

Thank you for not withholding him from me. And Abraham says, Lord, you will provide the sacrifice. They were already told that God would be the one who provides the sacrifice. They had an offering system, a sacrificial system, which pointed to the coming Messiah, right?

Their children were never needed. They had precedent not to ever think that. They already had a sacrificial system. But this is our example throughout human history. Here in the text of scripture, we have a theology of abortion.

It shows us that this is a fundamental heart issue, one in which only the gospel can cure. And so what do I mean by that? Abortion will not end in this country purely by pragmatism. Pragmatism doesn't end abortion.

Abortion is a fundamental heart issue that only the gospel can cure because it's people looking for a sacrifice. People are always looking for a sacrifice. We're created in the image of God to worship God.

No matter what people think or what people believe, I am a creature of God created to worship him. But as a fallen individual, I will look for worldly means to try to seek comfort in my life, knowing that there's some guilt that I have, knowing I don't have peace with God.

And if I listen to the lies of the enemy and what the world propagates, they say, sacrifice your child so that you can go and get a higher education. Sacrifice your child so you don't have to wake up early every single morning and take care of them, right?

Sacrifice your child because it will be easier for you. Oh, you have an unwanted pregnancy? Sacrifice your child so you don't have to deal with the repercussions of living in God's universe and having sex.

We live in God's universe. It's just the way those things work. Those are the lies of the enemy. But listen to this. Isaiah was a prophet during the reign of King Ahaz. This is super interesting. In Isaiah 7, we actually have the king of Israel who allowed Moloch worship asking Isaiah for a sign.

What does Isaiah actually tell the one who's sacrificing children? Isaiah 9, a child will be born. His name will be Emmanuel. You're sacrificing children. Guess what? A child will be born. Remember, Satan's plan was to stop the seed of the woman for the Messiah to come.

The child killer was given a promise that the Holy Child will come and rescue Israel from its enemies. No matter what the enemy wants to do, no matter how evil the hearts of men are, you cannot thwart the redemptive power of God.

And then what do we find after? Continue on in Scripture, we come to the birth of who? The Messiah. The birth of the Messiah. Then what happens, right? Remember Pharaoh from earlier? We all know the story.

The call to kill the children happened again. Happened again. That was the true fulfillment of prophecy. The one earlier with Moses was a shadow of Christ. There was a call to kill all the firstborn children of Israel.

And at this time, Jesus Christ was one of them. Here again is the theme, right? False worship begets child sacrifice. Even through the sinfulness of men, God's plan will not be thwarted. It won't. So stretch out all of the Old Testament history.

For thousands of years, the serpent was unable to stop the birth of the Messiah. We should take hope in that. No matter what the enemy wanted to do, Jesus still came. The Word took flesh. Even men in all their false worship with the killing of their own children could not stop the King of Kings from entering into the world.

The one to which all power, dominion, glory, and honor will be. The one to whom will inherit the nations. So do we truly understand the gravity of that? Do we understand the gravity of this? When God cut his covenant with Abraham, he spoke the truth.

He swore upon no one greater than himself when he walked between the animal carcasses. Though the people of Israel failed time and time again, he upheld his promise. The birth of Christ marked the beginning of the death of death.

It's true. The darkness of the world has been made a mockery of. Christ in his humility with a frame of flesh, starting in the womb as an infant, stood strong in every way that men fail. And this is interesting too.

Inevitably, we find the death of Christ on top of Golgotha, right? A place that eclipses where? The Valley of Hinnom. So going from Golgotha, you can look out and you can see the Valley of Hinnom where people sacrificed their own children in Israel thinking that was going to give them peace.

But the son of God was on the hill higher. He made a mockery of the devil there. Throughout millennia, the devil sought to kill the children to stop the one of promise. And now the son of promise dies with an eyesight to where Israel themselves practice child sacrifice.

Early amazing. He was the sacrifice which brings us peace with God. His blood was the propitiation for our sins. His innocent blood also seeped into the earth. Yet what do we know? Did death stop Christ?

No. He resurrected from the dead three days later. And our God lives now with a glorified body defeating death in the grave. And he ascended into heaven. And he now sits at the right hand of God on a throne not made with human hands.

And to him has been given what? Daniel chapter seven. All authority, rule, dominion, and power forever and ever. Amen. So what does this mean? What can we learn from the time that the serpent sought to kill the son of promise?

And how can we think about that today? So if we're thinking about the Old Testament as a shadow, right? And Christ fulfilling those shadows of the Old Testament, there's the serpent still at work today.

His head has been crushed, but he still is trying to accomplish something. He's still trying to thwart God's redemptive plan. Okay. Let us learn. Let's learn about it now. I want to preface it with this.

All the kingdoms of the earth belong to Christ. They do. Like the Hebrews of old, who are to enter into a certain section of land that they were to inherit, we are now called to go to the ends of the earth to do what?

Matthew 28, 19 through 20. God says before his ascension into heaven, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. If we were to think of the people of God and the promised land as a shadow, what we see today is that through Christ and his kingship, he inherits all nations.

And the people of God are called what? To stay in a central area? No. To go out to all the ends of the earth. That's the reality. Teaching them to obey. We are called to teach and preach the true worship of God made known solely through the sacrifice of Christ.

So how does the devil want to stop that? That's how you should be thinking. We're called to preach Christ crucified to every square inch of earth. The sacrifice has been made. God sent his son to pay the penalty of sin.

He is the true king and we are to obey his commands. Christ has now sent his spirit, the Holy Spirit, to convict the world of sin and righteousness. He will accomplish this. His purpose is they will not be thwarted and they will, he will one day return to judge the living and the dead.

So now how does God accomplish his purposes is the question you should be asking yourself. How is Satan trying to thwart God's redemptive plan? Well, what does God do? How does he accomplish his purposes?

By his will in the spirit, the Holy Spirit, by the people of God, through the proclamation of the gospel, right? The gospel is the power of God for salvation. He says, preach the truth, true worship, true law, true freedom in Jesus Christ to all of the nations, all of them.

And what do we know now about salvation? What occurs to the man whom God has given his mercy and grace to? Ephesians chapter one, we are adopted as sons through the blood of Jesus Christ. We are no longer children of wrath, but we are children of God.

And what do the scriptures tell us in Romans? That the earth groans for the revealing of the sons of God. God has a function within his church as the body of Christ, as a role, right? And the serpent with a crushed head in likewise manner still looks to thwart that will of God.

Hopefully some of these pieces are clicking to you. So now think to yourself, how will the serpent function to thwart the will of God? There's nothing new under the sun. He's using the very same tactics he used before.

False worship. Kill who? Well, the son of promise already came to him. He has all power, rule, dominion, and authority. What are you going to do? Well, I'm still going to try to kill children to stop the revealing of the sons of God.

That's what he's doing. He's still at work. There's nothing new under the sun to propagate false worship through influencing the hearts of men to kill their children. Again, the earth groans for the revealing of the sons of God.

Therefore, kill them before they ever take their first breath. We are the body of Christ. We are to function as the body of Christ. How do you try to thwart that plan? Kill as many of them as possible.

And herein, right now, I want to give you a historical context of abortion within the culture that surrounded the birth of the church and into the early church. So I'm going to have some quotes here of abortion that was occurring before Christ, after the death of Christ, how the early church actually handled these things.

Cicero, writing in the period before Christ, cited something called the Twelve Tables of Roman law when he wrote, deformed infants should be killed. And Seneca, from 4 BC to AD 39, wrote, we drown children who are at birth weakly and abnormal.

So this is how the Roman culture operated during the time of Christ. Plutarch, from AD 46 to 120, discussed the acceptance of child sacrifice. He says, the Carthaginians, I don't even know how to pronounce this, Carthaginians, he says, offered up their own children and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if there were so many lambs or young birds while the mother stood by without tear or moan.