Rally Highlight: A Life Well Lived

Apologia Studios

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We're one church, we said we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this till we die, we're gonna end abortion.

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Abortion, no matter how you measure it, is thriving in South Carolina, and that is wrong and that needs to stop.

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I'd rather have a group of people who are committed to the gospel and the law of God and are willing to open their mouths to the world than 25 ,000 people satisfied with walking around streets and then going home and laying their heads on their pillows.

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Praise God, thank you all for staying so long and standing on your feet so long. I'm gonna just seriously express my deepest gratitude for everybody here who has traveled so far and so long to join us in this fight.

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Some of you guys have come from different states, from different parts of the country. All of us wanna let you know how grateful that we are to you, so thank you so much for sacrificing so much for the sake of these children, because that's what it's about.

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So much has been said today, so faithfully, the most important things we need to understand, that our fight begins with the testimony of Jesus Christ, that this is truly about the gospel and about the authority of Jesus Christ.

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The question to be asked here constantly in every area of life is, by what standard?

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Amen to Christ. And you need to understand something, there is something happening right now, a move of God's spirits.

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You have to be so cautious saying that, because so many charlatans love to say that sort of thing, right?

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There's a move of God's spirit here. No, there is clearly a move of God's spirit happening right now across the country with his people in this area of establishing justice for the pre -born.

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There are hundreds upon hundreds of churches who are out on a daily basis, going to proclaim the gospel, going to offer help and hope to mothers and fathers, not going to wander and waddle around the abortion mill, praying the rosary with tape over their mouths.

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These are Christians who are going and they're calling it murder. They're saying things to mothers and fathers like, mom, dad, please don't murder your child.

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We're here to help you. We love you. We'll give you anything you need. We'll pay for anything you need.

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We'll even adopt your child. And they're going to proclaim the truth. And babies are being saved every single day in this country, every single day.

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And it's not just end abortion now. We're just one church. That's the thing you need to hear.

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I'm gonna try to portray this more for you in a moment. For those of you guys who are here today, we don't have 25 ,000 people marching through the streets of South Carolina.

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And that is okay with me. I'd rather have a group of people who are committed to the gospel and the law of God and are willing to open their mouths to the world than 25 ,000 people satisfied with walking around streets and then going home and laying their heads on their pillows.

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Because this is what changes the world. We are one church. Apology at Church, End Abortion Now is just a ministry of Apology at Church.

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I want you to hear this to encourage you, to motivate you, to challenge you.

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Listen, I know you're tired. You've been standing on your feet. It's getting hot. Thank you that it happened to me. We're one church.

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We're raised up close to 900 local churches around the country and around the world.

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Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand. It's happening around the world right now.

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We are just a local church in the desert. Understand that? We are not super special.

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We have people who love Jesus, love the world, and wanna proclaim Christ's excellencies to the world and his supremacy to the world.

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We're one church. We said we're gonna do this, we're gonna do this till we die, we're gonna end abortion.

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That's why we're doing this, for the glory of Christ and for his namesake. We said it and we meant it.

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When we said that at Apology at Church, it was the church known in the valley, Phoenix, it was known as that drug church.

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Careful. It's because we started at a drug rehab. I was a chaplain at a hospital.

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Everybody at church was a bunch of ex -drug addicts, halfway houses, detox medication, all that stuff.

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There was a small handful of believers at Apology at Church at the time that was even willing to go to the abortion mills.

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It was new to us as well. That's how we started. We saved two babies our first day and then kept saving babies.

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We've saved hundreds of babies locally. We're just one local church in the desert.

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Understand that. We're one church. Matt, how many did you say are in, within how many miles of the abortion mills?

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2 ,000 within an hour and a half. 2 ,000. 2 ,000 Baptist churches within an hour and a half of these abortion mills.

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We are one local church in the desert, raised up almost 900 churches who are saving babies every single day.

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At least eight to 10 babies' lives are being saved every single day because of the work that came from one local church.

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We have bills happening. I was just in Denver last week and it was cold, cold.

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I'll take this over that, trust me. Negative eight degrees is what it said it felt like and it was a snowstorm. But we have a bill that went into Colorado for eagle protection.

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It was such a powerful bill given by a Christian that we simply sat down and had dinner with and challenged him and he said, yes,

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I'll do it. We're just one local church. We sat with one believing legislator.

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He put the bill and his bill is powerful, eagle protection, it's murder. And anybody that tries to thwart the bill, the bill itself says you will be taken out of your job.

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That's one bill. We have right now working at over 15 states in 2022 of bills of abolition, criminalization, no compromise, it's murder, it's criminal.

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That's happening this year. There is a move of God's spirit happening.

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And how do you know that? How do you know something is in accord with God's spirit? That's God's spirit working there, right?

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The answer is if it is about Christ and his lordship and authority, if it is fidelity to his word, it is from God.

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And that's what this is right here. More encouragement, stay with me. We're one local church.

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All this is happening. We're not the only ones doing this. You can see there's veterans here.

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There are people here are working just like us. What we're doing with an abortion now is one local church.

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It's one in the desert in Arizona. But we started this because of one man who challenged me and brought me to my knees for the proclamation of the word.

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It was one faithful man who laid his life down to preach the gospel at abortion mills, to travel the country, to rally

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Christians around the word of God. He challenged me. It was one man that challenged us as a church and that's why this is happening right now.

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He's right over there. That's Rusty Thomas. He doesn't want the attention and he doesn't want the praise of men.

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All that applause is to the glory of God. Amen, yes? But you need to understand when you see a crowd like this of people who are gathered with Christ's authority above them with their hands around the word of God and their commitments to that, you have to understand that's how

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God changes the world. We all know the story of God whittling down armies to make sure that the world knows where it came from.

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It came from God. So when you look at yourselves right now and the crowd that's in front of you, we had a lot of people here today, understand something.

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What you see happening across the country right now as a move of God's spirit has been through the mustard seeds and it is changing the world.

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I wanna encourage you with what happened to us last week in Colorado. We were in Colorado. We stood around for 12 hours.

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If you've seen what happened testifying before Colorado, you're gonna see more soon. Once we get the audio cleared up, you're gonna see more, but you see my testifying before the members of the legislature in Colorado.

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We were there for 12 hours, testified at almost midnight. That's when that happened. I want you to understand something.

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Please hear this. The distinction in the movements. There were two pro -life bills before our bill being heard.

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One, weak sauce, a registry. Who's getting the abortions?

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It lasted for hours and then it got worse. Another bill, seemed all right, but it was compromised.

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Life at conception. That sounds great, but it explicitly said the only person criminally guilty for murdering the child is the abortionist and nobody else.

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Compromise, unequal weights and measures that God says is an abomination.

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Understand that when you look at a bill, what do you have to ask yourself as a believer? When you look at a bill and say, okay, should we get behind this?

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Should we believe this as Christians? Ask the question, according to God's law word, does

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God hate this bill? On the last day, if this bill was put before the

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Lord, would he judge it as partial? Would he judge it as unequal weights and measures?

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Would he call the bill an abomination? That should be the standard. Is this bill an abomination before God?

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And that bill, as much as there was probably good motives and intentions behind it in terms of life at conception, it was partiality, it was unequal weights and measures, and therefore it was an abomination before God and needed to be rejected.

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But the hearing that went up in Denver for that bill had the typical pro -life people, and I don't wanna smear their character or their motives at all,

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I just want you to know the difference. That bill wasn't ours. When that bill went up, it was the typical pro -life rhetoric.

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It was generally Christless, word of God less.

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It wasn't about Christ and obedience to him. It wasn't about repentance and establishing immediate justice for all humans.

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And then came our bill. There is a move of God's spirit. Because when our bill went up, the legislator came up,

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Dave went up to introduce the bill, and the first thing he did is he confessed his failure to the fellow legislators to let them know why he's doing what he's doing.

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And he told them it was about Christ, his authority, his lordship, and the word of God, that it was about the gospel.

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This was before the Colorado legislature, which is filled with very hostile people, let me tell you.

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You could see fire in their eyes behind their masks, their face diapers.

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It looked like they were angry, I don't know, you can never tell with these things. But it's a very hostile legislature, and he preached

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Christ. And I want you to know that that hearing went on from when I was told until like 3 .30 or four o 'clock in the morning, and I had behind me,

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I spoke first, I had behind me a line of Christians from all over Colorado that came out, they stayed there all day long until midnight and into the a .m.

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hours to preach the gospel to the legislators and to demand immediate justice.

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There is a move of God's spirit happening in this country. This is unprecedented, it is unprecedented.

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And you heard Representative Jonathan Hill, who is a hero, he is a

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Christian hero, come up here and tell you before this place, this place of government, and he is in government, that this is about the word of God, Christ, the gospel.

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There is a move of God's spirit in this country, brothers and sisters, you can be sure of it because it's rooted in the word of God.

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It's rooted in Christ and his authority, his lordship. Very important, brothers and sisters, to be encouraged, to start serving, to start preaching the truth.

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Yes, you, you, each of you.

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It's the gospel, as Pastor Brandon said, it's the gospel that's the power of God for salvation.

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It is what God uses to bring life to the world. When you don't preach it, there is no life.

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And that power doesn't have to come through amazing speakers, powerful men.

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That power is in the gospel itself, in the spirit of God. Out of the mouth of babes, it can change the world.

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So yes, I'm talking to you, it takes you. And Zach said something,

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Launch Logger said something at the beginning here, we're grateful that you've come, we're grateful that you're standing here, we're grateful that you're showing up and you're letting people know that we demand immediate justice.

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But brothers and sisters, my question to you is this, what about when you leave here? What about tomorrow?

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I am not a motivational speaker. I'm not just trying to motivate you and inspire you like a youth camp.

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I'm telling you that lives are at stake, that God commands us to bring the story of his gospel and supremacy into the world, that is our call.

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And yes, it hurts. Yes, it's gonna cost you. It will cost you.

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We said as a church, when we got into this, I want you to hear this, we got into this, I said to our small church of a bunch of ex -drug addicts at the drug church,

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I said, if we do this every single day for the rest of our lives as a church and we save one, it's a life well lived and a ministry well spent.

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We have saved thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children, thousands upon thousands upon thousands of children.

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We have legislation going in across the United States to establish immediate justice because people were willing to take the risk.

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When we first started posting, going to the abortion mills online, we first posted it.

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We would be having thousands of people watching it live and we had nonstop criticism from Christians.

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The pro -choice community has barely had to ever lift a finger against us.

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It has been Christians who've said, that's not how you reach those women. That seems really harsh and mean.

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That's not how you reach those women. You should be doing it a different way. And I thought to myself, I thought we're all in agreement here that this is murder and they need the gospel and we need to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

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We're laying our lives down for them. It was confusing to me. And so then we started saving babies and so I stopped responding to the comments and when people would make them,

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I would just post a picture. Here were twins saved. Here's a baby saved,

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Carmelo. Here's another baby saved. Where are the babies you've saved? We're talking about methodologies here, right?

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You're saying this isn't from God. So my question is this, we've saved 500. How many of you saved from death?

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You know what the answer was? Silence. Because it is the word of God that transforms the world.

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Not armchair evangelists and theologians on Facebook. Preach the gospel, get out there, lay your life down for the lost.

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That is how God transforms the world. We are one church in the desert. The work that we're doing and coordinated with all these other ministries across the country is happening because people said,

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I wanna love God and love my neighbor and really mean it. I'm gonna do something about it.

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Don't leave here with a motivational speech. I wanna challenge you.

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You are called to establish justice. You are called to hold them back from the slaughter.

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You are called to love your neighbor as you love yourself. You know what's happening. What are you doing about it?

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You need to go to those abortion mills. Yeah, save lives. But you know what you need to also do? You need to go to these legislators and you need to demand that they establish justice.

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Call them to repentance. Use the word of God. All that this is happening right now across the country. These legislators who are coming up here with these bills and they're preaching

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Christ. Do you know what happened? Christians sat down with them, looked them in the eye and called them to their commitment to the lordship of Jesus Christ and the word of God.

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And then God used that to open their eyes and their minds and their hearts.

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And that's why this is happening. And you might say, I don't know what to say. My question to you is this. Do you know the gospel?

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Do you know what the word of God says about the murder of children? Then go and proclaim that to your legislators and tell them that you will make sure that they don't get elected if they do not stand on the truth.

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Speak the truth brothers and sisters. Don't forget what pastor, I'm not gonna preach a sermon that was amazing.

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All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Jesus said that over 2000 years ago. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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That's past tense. He's not waiting for that authority brothers and sisters. He's the ruler of the kings of the earth.

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He is bringing his gospel to the ends of the earth. Don't ever forget that the goal of the gospel is to win the nations to Jesus Christ.

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The nations to Jesus Christ. He wants the entire world. That's what he came for. The story of the gospel of the kingdom is a world that is entirely ruled over and transformed by Jesus Christ and his good news.

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He is the one who brings peace to the world. We are the ones that proclaim that message of peace. So brothers and sisters, this is our duty as the bride of Christ, his help meet.

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That's what we're supposed to be doing. He has all authority. Don't forget how this gospel goes. All authority belongs to his.

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He has it all. Go win the nations, baptize them, and teach them to obey.

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You should have seen the faces, the eyeballs of the legislators in Denver.

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They were so in awe of the fact that people were just preaching the law word of God and the gospel.

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They were in awe of it. And one of the legislators, if you watched that testifying, he hated me.

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When I was talking to him, he got frustrated and he said to the other legislator, he said, he's just gonna proselytize.

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You're darn skippy. I chose those words carefully.

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Apparently I'm known for saying hard things. That's right, it's about Christ.

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I'm not ashamed of that. Those legislators were in shock that this was Christians from all over Colorado proclaiming

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Christ and the authority of Jesus Christ, calling them to repent and to obey Jesus.

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This is unprecedented. It's a powerful moment. And I want you to understand a very important thing here.

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The question is by what standard will you fight? The pro -life industry explicitly says they are not

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Christian. They are not Christian organizations. It is not about the word of God. They say we're about the science.

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Great, science, obviously, it's God's world, shows what God's word says, that what's in the womb from the moment of conception is human life from conception.

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That cannot be disputed. It won't be disputed because it is a dangerous game to play to come against all of that evidence.

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These legislators won't fight that. Listen, this is not a biological question. It's an ethical one.

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It's a moral question. You cannot fight this fight with the biological question because I'm gonna tell you what they say.

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They know that it's fully human. They admit it's fully human, but they say even though it's fully human, we still have the right to kill these children.

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It's ethical, which means it is about human sin and depravity.

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And the only way you solve the problem of human sin is not through rational argumentation.

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You've got men walking around wearing dresses. You could say, isn't it obvious to you that you're not a lady?

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Look at your beard. Look between your legs. You're not a woman.

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It's offensive to say that you are. Just take a gander yonder.

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Rational argumentation isn't the problem. It is that this is an image bearer of God at war with their creator, and they're exchanging

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God for the creature, and they are now flipping the order of creation.

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They are living according to their lusts. It's sin. You are not gonna convince the world through mere rational argumentation.

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They need eyes to see. They need to be able to hear, and they need new hearts, and the only way that happens, brothers and sisters, is through the church proclaiming his gospel.

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This is an issue of sin, and that's why we must not compromise. Last thing

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I'll say. And you know, we never mean it. I was laughing when you, one more point, one more point.

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If it was this guy, we're twins. That's awesome. The issue of compromise, the issue of compromise.

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Jesus proclaims his gospel in a way that most evangelicals in the West today do not. Give Jesus a chance.

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Give him a try. Just let him into your little heart. He wants to have a romance with you. This is all about a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus.

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Now, of course, as elders, we have certain elements to that that are true. We have an intimate relationship with God.

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We're reconciled. We have peace with God. I get all that. Of course, that's true. God redeems us. He saves us by his grace, through faith in Christ alone.

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Apart from any work, we get his righteousness. He takes all of our sin. We have eternal life.

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We're kept by the power of God. Amen to all of that. But we preach the gospel in a way that's very different than Jesus.

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He has crowds that follow him, and what does he say? He turns to him when he's getting a megachurch movement going, looking pretty good.

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We can get a big building, lots of programs. And he says, if anyone comes to me and does not hate, and then he names all of our favorite people in life, mother, father, sister, brother, wife, he says, you're not worthy to be my disciple.

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He says, if you don't come to him and carry the cross, that is come to die, then you're not worthy to be his disciple.

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Jesus preaches a gospel without compromise, and he's willing for the crowd, listen, for the crowd to leave.

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And he turns after the crowd leaves to now this very small band of brothers, and he says to them at times, he says, what?

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Do you also wanna leave? And they got it. They said, where are we gonna go?

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You have the words of eternal life. Now that was a small, very confused band of brothers in the first century, and you exist today in South Carolina and believers all over the world from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation hearing the gospel redeemed by God because of this very confused, small band of brothers who understood that it is about eternal life.

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Jesus preached the gospel without compromise, and he was willing to have the small crew of people who understood what it was really about.

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That's how he changes the world. Mustard seeds to large trees, leaven in lumps of dough, in what looks insignificant is absolutely significant to God because it's his power anyways, and he wants the glory for himself, and that's why he does what he does.

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No compromise. We will not compromise on these bills. We will call into repentance.

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We will call it evil. We will call it partiality. We will say, no, equal justice, equal protection now for all human beings without compromise.

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And someone says, why don't you give a little? Say that to Jesus. Jesus, just give a little on the gospel.

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Like, let him get a foot in the door first, Jesus, before you scare him away with the dying parts. Right? I mean, why don't we invite him to church and give him cotton candy and popcorn at the door?

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You know, try to sort of, you know, lull them into this a bit. Jesus says, no, look, if you're not gonna come die, don't come.

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Don't come. So we go with the same no compromise gospel message to the legislature by saying the same things to them.

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Obey Christ. Question, how much? All of you. Every bit.

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It is Christ who has all authority and it is his law word that is the standard.

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Brothers and sisters, that's what we must preach. Go tell the world the message of Jesus.

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Go preach it. Call the world to repentance and faith. Tell the world about his excellencies and his peace and demand of these legislators to obey their king.

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Early on in this nation, it wasn't a utopia. It wasn't a perfect place, but we're experiencing to this very moment the blessings that the

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Christians and pastors put into place. You're still getting it now. It's hanging by a thread, but you're getting it now.

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They understood in the New England pulpit before it went to war with England, who had the authority and what the standard was.

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Listen, the word was Lex Rex. The law is king.

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It is not the king or the legislators are law. The law is king.

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If you do not recognize a transcendent law above the government, then government has become deified.

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This represents a foreign God, a rival God to this king.

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And so we do, yes, come to the legislature and we say Christ is king. You are supposed to obey

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Jesus. Repent and obey Jesus. Obey his law. That's the call.

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Stop compromising. Stop being fearful of what we actually believe. Actually have integrity to say to legislators, oh yeah, it's because the word of God.

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It's because Jesus Christ has all authority. You tell that message and brothers and sisters, abortion is gonna end in this country.