Rally Highlight: 'Where is The Christian Witness'

So I want to welcome you guys. My name is Jeremy Ubroth. I'm the pastor of Emmaus Road Reformed Baptist Church, and it is my distinct honor and pleasure to be here with you guys today.

It is an amazing event that we get to celebrate, really one of probably the most historic bills ever introduced in Colorado's history, and I would even go as far as to say probably the nation's history.

Would you agree? Bill 1079, abolishing abortion in Colorado, was an epic bill, a bill that we got to celebrate in the sense of finally being a bill that was introduced using, probably for the first time ever

I think, Christian language outside of the founding era in our nation's history. And so today

I want to share a little story about how we got involved with it, why we're here today, why we are here to encourage and really rally the troops to get behind abolishing abortion once and for all in Colorado, and as we work toward that effort to end it nationwide.

And so with that said, here's a little backstory. So we're a little church in Colorado Springs, and we got involved through the

End Abortion Now movement about, I think it's about four years ago now. We were actually one of the first of the few hundred churches to sign up with End Abortion Now.

We received the kit, and we decided we're going to go out and we're going preach the gospel at our local Planned Parenthood.

And let me say this, it was met with some pretty fierce adversity in the beginning. I imagine some of you out here in the crowd today, as you've been working in the abolitionist movement, maybe for some time, far longer than we have, you've probably experienced some adversity in your church.

Let me share a little story. So I said, man, I'm really excited. I've been following Apologia for some time now, and as I followed them, and I've kind of followed their story,

I was convicted. I was burdened. I actually wasn't involved, to my own shame, and I had no idea.

It wasn't even on my radar. It wasn't something that I was looking at nor considering. And as I was following these guys,

I was watching their story unfold. I said, man, we need to get involved. This is a pretty important issue, and at most it's a gospel issue.

Amen? And when I say it's a gospel issue, I was saying, you know what?

What is the lowest hanging fruit in our city? We're a tiny little church. We have very minimal resources available to us.

How can we get involved? What would be the best form of outreach? And me, as really the pastor of outreach, my co -elder, the pastor of inReach, and we both inReach together and outreach together, he basically said,

Jeremy, pick a mission. Let's get after it. We need to reach our city with the gospel. And as I've been following Apologia, I said, man, you know what?

I can't think of any other reason to get involved in the abolitionist movement to finally put an end to abortion.

I thought, man, you know what? This right here is the easiest and simplest thing to approach.

Hey, stop killing your children. It seems very easy to me when you think about it, what it means to actually be a part of the abolitionist movement and how it is a gospel issue.

We should not kill our children. Our children are what? A blessing from the Lord, something to be treasured, something to be appreciated, right?

God opens and closes the womb. It's him that does the actual work. And so why in the world would someone take that which should be most precious to us and destroy it?

Well, as I've been going down this journey, I discovered, you know what? This shouldn't even exist in Colorado.

Think about it for a moment. How many churches do we have in Colorado, you guys? Tons, thousands, right?

It probably just within this square mile. Think about how many churches exist in Colorado. Think about the

Christian witness that stands presently in Colorado. It blew my mind when

I thought, wait a minute, how is it not abolished here? Why of all places I could think, you know, there's a lot of really, you know, gospel centered states.

But when I think of the kind of state Colorado is and the representation that we have here of Christians, it boggled my mind that this thing is even something that has to even be on our radar.

Why is that? Well, let me tell you what Francis Schaeffer said something profound. He said, you know, the reason why abortion back in Roe v.

Wade and even before that even had a chance to come into existence, why it was even liberalized and then eventually completely legalized.

The only reason that happened was because the church did nothing. As a matter of fact, he went as far as to say, there should be a sign on every abortion mill that says open by permission of the church.

And when I heard that, that shook me, that rocked me. I thought we need to get involved. So of course we reach out to Zach, the fellows at Apology, and we said, hey man, we need to get involved.

I want to get involved. I want to do this. This is a gospel issue. We're going to reach our city and we're going to start from our city. We're going to work out to our county and try to be as influential as we can.

And here we are, a tiny little church, a few years later, who just stepped out and decided we're going to get involved.

And here we are at the state capitol today. We had the blessing of providing testimonies for Bill 1079.

We had the ability to call our legislators, our state legislators, accountable to the living

God. We represent the Lord Jesus Christ in all that we do. Amen. So it's a pretty straightforward issue.

But then I asked myself, why is this still an issue in Colorado? How come more people won't get involved?

So can you imagine what would happen when here you are, you see my passion, you see my excitement for this. What happened when

I stepped out and said, oh man, the church, they're going to get behind this. When we started sharing from the pulpit, our hearts about getting involved in the abolitionist movement, do you think everybody was like super pumped and excited to get involved in this?

Now, let me tell you what happened. We had people hold us hostage with their tithes. They said, if you get involved in this work, we're going to go find another church.

That blatantly. How could that be? It's so simple to me. People are killing their children.

Let's go preach the gospel to them and tell them to stop killing their children. But no, they said, that's not something we should be involved in.

You know, God's committed them to judgment. That's why they're killing their children. What are you guys thoughts on that?

Is that okay? No, no, it's not okay. God's committed them to judgment.

Then you have other people say, well, Jeremy, what are you worried about? All babies go to heaven anyway, right? So why would you go out in front of Planned Parenthood, especially the one we're at.

If you guys have seen any of our videos on Emmaus Road Media, shameless plug, go look there.

And to look at some of our videos, people are like, what, Zach even asked the other day, hey, Jeremy, why are you guys so far away? Well, strategically, they placed the

Planned Parenthood way in the back of a business area. It's private property. So we cannot face them engage with the public.

We have to cry out to them through a megaphone pleading with them not to kill their children. And we still get the same reactions.

I'm sure many of you've had. Yet the thing that baffled me the most is when

I said, hey, we need some equipment. We need to get after this. You guys, we need to reach our city. So I'd like to actually go out and touch base with the number one contributor of abortion in the world, which is our college campuses.

You guys done any outreach on college campuses? Yeah. What's that like? Is that super fun?

Okay. Yeah. Maybe you guys are fired up. You enjoy that. You appreciate it. I think it's really hard. I actually don't like it at all.

I think it's really tough work. Even though I'm willing to do it, I'm willing to step out and do it. It's tough. You guys, no one wants to do it really.

And then when you try to rally people behind it, you say, hey, man, why don't you guys join me? Come out. Let's actually share the gospel with people out of the college campuses, because mostly where strategically do

Planned Parenthoods place themselves? Next to college campuses. Why?

Sexual promiscuity. It's running rampant there. And so if people want to preserve their college education, they want to continue that.

They don't want to be bound by a child. What do they do? They go kill their child. So we went out and engaged with people there.

Well, then we had a, at first we had a big showing. And then over time, even people within our own church stopped showing up.

We got people to complain. I don't like these yucky signs. That's horrible. You're condemning these women.

We're not condemning them. They're already condemned. We're just telling them the truth. We're exposing the darkness of what happens behind Planned Parenthood, behind the doors, right?

This is something that everybody should be made aware of. Well, I think you're getting a little too rough with these people.

You need to chill out. You know, Grace Bro, we even had someone park their truck next to the place where we preach and drop a rock off saying, and it had on there, he who cast the first stone of judgment.

Come on, you're casting the stone at us right now. You're living out this prophecy, right? Or this parable.

I share all that to say, I personally, as a pastor have found it incredibly difficult to get people involved.

And I personally think, I believe this with all of my heart. This is an emergency situation.

One moment, please, while we process your requests. I am convinced in my heart of hearts,

I believe wholeheartedly that more folks like you, the more influential that we are with one another in our church bodies, of course, graciously encouraging people to get involved, seeing this as a gospel issue.

Folks, I'm convinced this small population of people right here today, no different than a tiny church out of Tempe, Arizona, just look at what they've done.

We too can work together to end abortion in Colorado. Wouldn't you like to see that? So with that said, how can we practically then get to work?

You know, I asked, I've been having conversations with Dave Williams and I want to be supportive of him. As a matter of fact, I was just at the

CD5, the congressional assembly this morning, dropped my ballot and then raced out the door to make sure that he was on the ballot to be voted for.

I want to support men who want to see abortion ended in our state. And Dave probably provided one of the most powerful testimonies

I have ever heard from any sort of representative. If you guys have not had the chance yet, go to Apologia Studios, go watch the video and look and listen to what

Dave had to say. I highly recommend you go listen to this man who is a legislator in our state, who confessed publicly to his, he even said, to my own shame, that he has not really, he has not really been faithful in the area of expanding his witness for Christ.

And then he confessed and then he probably presented one of the most powerful testimonies in support of his bill. We need to stand behind people and get people involved, guys.

It starts with our vote. Let me share a little brief story about our little journey. A couple of goofballs, Greg and I, you may have seen us in the videos.

We listened to Apologia. These guys have been highly influential, as you can imagine, right? Hey, these guys are getting involved in their state processes.

Maybe we should do that. So my buddy Greg here and I, we said, we'll go to one of these things called the caucus.

You guys have been involved in your city caucus or your state caucus? Who's been involved in state caucus? Oh boy, got work to do, people.

I have only a few hands. Here's what I'm saying. I have no idea what to do. None. Walk in,

I'm like, all right, just meet people. Hi, how's it going? I have no idea. Next thing you know, I'm a precinct leader.

Okay, that could be dangerous. I'm a precinct leader. And then appointed as delegates for every single assembly, which means that we actively, this group of people here, as you get involved, can actually cast your vote for who you want to see on the ballot.

Who you want to see on the ballot are the ones who make decisions legislatively in our state.

And you right now have the opportunity to get involved at the grassroots level. You right now can jump in just like a couple of goofballs here.

I honestly have no idea. I still try to figure out this morning what I was doing. But I know this, the more we get involved, folks, the more we'll be effective.

So let me say this. Let me provide some encouragement here to you and a challenge, a loving challenge. He's just doing like circles around the block.

Please, God, help them find where they need to go. Let me give you a couple of practical pointers.

Guys, those of you out there who are keyboard warriors, man, you love to hash it out with people on Facebook.

Okay, you love it. You engage with people. Sometimes I engage with you. We go back and forth.

You might have seen me do that. Maybe a little too much. That's not really helping you guys.

It's not. Now, I know you think, but it, bro, it's evangelistic. Yeah, I agree. Share the gospel for sure.

But guys, that's not making a change in our state to end abortion. It's just not. Actively getting involved in your civic work and rolling up your sleeve and getting involved in the civic work is more than keyboard warriors behind Facebook or Twitter.

I promise you. So in the end, I'll wrap up with this, okay? Because I'll keep going here all day.

Greg knows that. Everybody knows that. I'll just preach all day. What I, he's still, is that another one?

That's another one. Okay. At the end of it, why are we here today?

What is the most important thing? And I think you're going to hear this message across the board. We are standing in direct opposition against principalities, forces of darkness, rulers of this day and age.

And we possess the most powerful weapon to stand against all of those foes. What is it you guys?

What is it? What's the most powerful weapon that we possess to stand? The gospel?

How about the sword of the spirit? The very word of God. Okay. We need to armor up.

We need to take the fight right to the steps of the enemy's gates. And what does Christ promise?

The gates of Hades will not prevail. I'm here to inform you those gates are not offensive weapons.

I know it sounds weird, but the gates aren't like attacking you guys. They're not pressing you into a corner.

The gates are here and Christians will be victorious in Jesus Christ. Amen. We believe ultimately that all

Christ's enemies will be brought underneath his feet and then he'll hand the kingdom over to the father.

And we are an active part of that preaching and declaring faithfully the word of God, holding our legislators accountable from the state, the county, all the way to the city.

That is our obligations as Christians to have a prophetic voice, to declare faithfully this is what you are required to do as a legislator.

One who is a God's deacon, God's minister, appointed by God. That is your responsibility and that is your obligation.

Legislator, city leader, city council member. So let me encourage you guys, go to Apologia Studios, look up their content, get educated, and get out there.

We who are out there, and I'm sure I'll get a hearty amen at this, would really appreciate some support.

We would really appreciate more than prayer, although prayer is important, but praying at home isn't enough. Pray yourself into action.

Amen. So with that said, hey guys, thank you so much for coming out today. Again, my name is Jeremy Ubroth. I'm a pastor at Emmaus Road Reformed Baptist Church in Colorado Springs, and it is my distinct pleasure to encourage these guests to come up here and share with you today their hearts, their passion for why they're here.

And please let us not leave here today and just go home and say, yes, great cheerleading event, but let us go from here today and move into action practically.