"Confidential" and Condemning Letter Found

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March 7, 2019

Join us for this very special broadcast of Apologia Radio. We talk about a very important "confidential" letter that was discovered. We also talk about Mormonism. Don't miss it! Go to http://apologiastudios.com for much more!

00:00: Non -rockabotas must stop. I don't want to rock the boat. I want to sink it.
00:08: Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite? We're being delusional. Delusional?
00:15: Delusional is okay in your world view. I'm an animal. You don't chastise chickens for being delusional. You don't chastise pigs for being delusional.
00:21: So you calling me delusional using your world view is perfectly okay. It doesn't really hurt. Is he hung up on me?
00:32: Desperate times call for faithful men and not for careful men. The careful men come later and write the biographies of the faithful men, lauding them for their courage.
00:44: Go into all the world and make disciples. Not go into the world and make buddies. Not to make brosives. Don't go into the world and make homies.
00:52: Disciples. I got a bit of a jiggle neck. That's a joke, master.
00:59: When we have the real message of truth, we cannot let somebody say they're speaking truth when they're not.
01:06: Take an amazing journey so you will never be the same again.
01:21: It is an abomination to kings to do evil for the throne is established by righteousness.
01:30: What's up, guys? Welcome back to the Gospel Heard Around the World. This is Apologia Radio coming at you guys from Apologia Studios in Phoenix, Arizona.
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01:45: Zach Conover, Director of Communications for End Abortion Now. What's up? Technically, it's your left hand today.
01:50: Oh, that's right. That's right. Seated in my right hand. From your perspective. What's up, guys?
01:57: Welcome back. If you guys would, share this live stream right now across your social media.
02:03: We need your help to get this information out. We have some very important things to share with everybody today.
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02:15: States. He is working to abolish abortion in the state of Oklahoma. And we have some very, very interesting information to share with you guys.
02:25: So we're going to talk with Russell Hunter in just a moment here. And after that, if we have time, we want to talk a bit about the gospel and Mormonism.
02:32: There's always time for the gospel. There's always time for the gospel and Mormonism. So the gospel and the conflict with abortion and the gospel and the conflict with Mormonism.
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03:23: Hey, bro. One day, you're going to technically be Dr. White's pastor. I'd be like, Shut your mouth.
03:30: I wouldn't have believed it. Did you see what he said to me recently? He made a post about just the state of the culture and everything.
03:36: And he has a very realistic tendency to talk about the culture and where things are going.
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05:22: Meatfest2019, you're giving towards that work. But for every $25 that you give towards the work of Apologia Kauai, we want to blast all of our partners in some way.
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06:10: slash Meatfest2019. And we'll get going with that. So very, very excited to have this episode.
06:18: Last night, when I was looking through some of the content, I contacted Russell Hunter with Free the
06:24: State. He's a friend. And I am so proud of him and so excited about what he's doing in the state of Oklahoma.
06:30: So for all of you guys who are watching right now that are not up to speed, before I bring him on, let me make sure
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06:56: I had the blessing and the privilege to spend time with Russell Hunter in Oklahoma very recently.
07:04: And that was surrounding Senator Joseph Silk's bill to abolish, to criminalize, to end once and for all abortion in the state of Oklahoma.
07:15: Now this is important. Please hear this. This is not merely a legislative effort to end abortion.
07:22: This is a Christ -centered biblical worldview saturated focus on bringing the gospel and the
07:29: Christian worldview into conflict with the issue of abortion. This is not petty partisan stuff. This is not neutrality.
07:36: This is Christians working to bring the gospel and justice, true justice, into conflict with the issue of abortion.
07:43: So I had the privilege of spending time with Russell in Oklahoma. It was truly, truly a gift to do so and got to see the work that he's doing out there with Senator Joseph Silk.
07:52: SB 13. Get to know that. SB 13 in Oklahoma is the bill to abolish abortion, to end it once and for all in the state of Oklahoma.
08:01: And again, it is a movement of the Christians really foundationally to work for justice for these pre -born children.
08:08: Now, Russell is doing some amazing things. You should see some of the billboards that are going up all over Oklahoma.
08:14: I think that he is a smart, smart man and he is doing a fantastic job. But I just discovered really what happened in terms of the pro -life movement we've known, of course, is warring against a strictly criminalization or abolition of abortion.
08:33: The pro -life movement, believe it or not, if you're new to this discussion, I'm going to say this very, very respectfully and humbly.
08:39: The pro -life movement is working against against the idea of abolition or criminalization or ending abortion.
08:47: They truly are. You need to understand that. You know that two or three years ago, Senator Silk did another bill similar to this one.
08:55: And we discovered what Russell was doing in the background and our other friends were doing.
09:01: And we noticed a man named Tony Lowinger. Tony Lowinger was the vice president of National Right to Life. It's one of the largest pro -life organizations in the world.
09:10: They were actually working ineffectively in Ireland when we were there to try to help the church in Ireland and not being overly helpful.
09:19: When we discovered that this man who also is with Oklahomans for Life was working against the bill to criminalize abortion in Oklahoma, we had
09:27: Tony Lowinger on to try to offer some backup and assistance to the team that was out there in Oklahoma working to end abortion.
09:34: And once and for all, we wanted to expose Tony Lowinger's worldview to show you that he is not ultimately working to criminalize and end abortion in Oklahoma the way that it ought to be.
09:46: He is believing the lie that Roe v. Wade is a law and that somehow that is hanging over us and we can't actually have interposition to stop abortion in the states.
09:58: And so you also heard from Tony in that interview. You can go. It's on YouTube now. You also heard from him that they are seeking to take a backdoor approach, not explicitly
10:07: Christian. They don't want to use Christian terminology. They don't want to use Christian language. His perspective is neutrality.
10:13: His perspective is yield to the federal beast. His perspective is yield to the fallacious opinion of the
10:20: Supreme Court in the 1970s that is easily refuted. His perspective is not constitutional.
10:28: It is in terms of who makes law in our country according to the Constitution. It is Congress, not the
10:33: Supreme Court. Okay, so we're there now, right? You guys got that? That happened before Tony Lowinger was a part of actually stopping that bill in the past.
10:41: Well, I want to bring Russell on and have him explain to us where we're at right now in Oklahoma, what is going on, and what is up with this confidential letter that fell into your lap.
10:52: Russell Hunter, welcome to Apologia Radio, brother. Awesome to be here with you guys. Absolutely.
10:58: Who to thunk, right? Here we are. Somewhere, somebody's head just went... Yes, exactly, exactly.
11:05: So let's do it, man. Let's get right to it. Russell, can you bring all of our listeners and viewers up to speed?
11:11: What is going on in Oklahoma? We want to know what's happening. We want to know how do we help you, and we want to find out about this letter, so talk to us.
11:19: Well, the great thing that's going on in Oklahoma is that Senate Bill 13 is not dead.
11:25: So they didn't have enough votes to bring it up and kill it, so they had to table it, and they had left it alive.
11:31: So it's going to be alive through the rest of the legislative session on into next year. Good, good.
11:37: The movement around it, people who understand it, the difference between it and sort of a pro -life regulation bill has been astounding.
11:45: It's been a great success, even though they haven't voted on it. The number of people who are coming to understand the difference between an abolition bill and a pro -life bill, a regulation bill, is great.
11:59: Yeah. And it's also hitting a lot of ground. We have a lot of people right now who are probably watching this on YouTube live who don't quite understand the difference.
12:08: Can you just, and I want to make sure you get all the time you need to explain everything, but for those who are new to us in this discussion,
12:14: Russell, can you help us with that distinction between a pro -life bill and an abolitionist bill? Like, what's the distinction, what's the distinctives between the two camps?
12:23: Yeah, the primary distinction will come from, it begins with treating abortion for what it is.
12:28: So if you treat abortion as murder, and in your bill you're going to say abortion is murder, the so -called constitutional right to abortion was unconstitutional, and abortion should be criminalized, thereby abolished, that's going to be sort of the defining characteristic of an abolition bill.
12:49: The defining characteristic of a pro -life bill is to sort of accept the
12:54: Supreme Court's ruling that abortion is constitutional and try to find a way to regulate or restrict access to abortion within Roe v.
13:05: Wade or within KCV Planned Parenthood to try to reduce the number of abortions. Now, there may be good motives on that side, but the defining characteristic of a pro -life bill would be compliance to the
13:17: Supreme Court, acceptance of the legality of choice, and then sort of trying to make people choose life or make a better choice.
13:28: Abolition bills, like, there shouldn't be a choice. This should be illegal, a criminal act that the purpose of government is to actually punish evildoers and protect the innocent.
13:39: Russell, can you help me with this? Just give everyone a good perspective of what that looks like. Let's say, for example, a pro -life bill goes into committee and moves its way through and then finally becomes real for the pro -life movement and they celebrate a victory.
13:54: What are some of the victories that they actually celebrate? They get a bill going and it actually connects now and it's standing.
14:01: What's a victory for the pro -life movement? Yeah, there's been about 250 to 300 pro -life victory bills, bills such as you can get an abortion after you've looked at an ultrasound.
14:14: You can get an abortion so long as your abortionist has, you know, hospital visitation privileges or ambulance service or you can get an abortion so long as your abortionist has a certain sign -up in their office and they celebrate these as victories.
14:30: Of course, they don't really reduce the number of abortions and they don't establish justice for pre -born fatherless children but they make people feel like they're doing something.
14:42: They can say they're winning. They can send out more fundraising letters. They can get more votes. In Oklahoma, they can receive roses for being pro -life but nothing really changes because they're not calling for justice.
14:54: They're basically calling for peace, peace when there is no peace and, you know, putting forward these ideas.
15:01: From an abolitionist perspective, we think that that's actually key to keeping abortion legal.
15:07: You get all these people that believe abortion is evil and it's murder and ought to be abolished. You get all them together and get them focused on these incremental victories instead of unifying together to call for total and immediate abolition and that delays justice.
15:23: Yes. Okay. So, can you help everyone real fast with the SB13? What exactly is it and where is it at right now?
15:32: Well, SB13 removes the exception for abortion in Oklahoma's homicide laws and says that, no, there's not going to be an exception.
15:41: Like, in our actual murder code, it says you can't murder unborn children unless you're doing a legal abortion.
15:48: So, it removes that exception, repeals all the pro -life laws, all the pro -life laws that say you can get an abortion if you do this, this, and this and it directly challenges the constitutionality of the right to terminate humans in the womb.
16:05: Where it is currently at is everyone's reading it, everyone's talking about it, and the pro -life lobby and the pro -life legislators in Oklahoma are pulling out all the stops to put forward fake,
16:18: I'd say fake abolition bills to save face, but they're just putting forward these other bills so they don't have to pass
16:26: Senate Bill 13. But Senate Bill 13 is what not only Oklahoma needs, but any state in the union needs.
16:32: Now, Russell, I need you to help me with this, and we have to try to be measured, of course, and humble and gracious, but also we have to be honest in this entire work.
16:41: What we've run into in the past in these kinds of situations, and you've seen this more than any of us, when you have these things in motion, some of the greatest pushback and resistance you receive is not ultimately from the opposition in terms of pro -choicers.
16:57: You're seeing opposition from Christian organizations, pro -life organizations, working against a bill to criminalize and abolish and to end once and for all abortion in Oklahoma.
17:07: Can you help us with that? What does that look like? Well, right now, it very literally looks like the
17:13: Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma conspiring in backroom deals with political leaders and the heads of the
17:22: Catholic Church in Oklahoma to together be unified in their opposition to Senate Bill 13.
17:28: We have actually received zero opposition from any pro -choice groups. There's just,
17:34: I mean, Oklahoma is, you know, it is a very conservative, red state.
17:40: Pro -lifers dominate the House, the Senate, the Governor's office. The only people who possess any power to stop abortion from being abolished in Oklahoma are, you know, professing
17:52: Christians and pro -lifers. And yes, they are actively scheming, writing letters, making public pronouncements, calling press conferences, and joining.
18:04: It's very strange, but the leaders of the Catholic, I don't know what you call them, the
18:11: Catholic Church. Diocese? Yeah, I mean, the Archdiocese of the
18:17: Catholic Church here. Yeah. Along with the president of the Baptist General Convention and the head press guys there.
18:24: They are all actively working and quite literally. Like, so I'm at the
18:30: Capitol quite a bit. They are quite literally having closed door secret meetings to come up with ways to scheme killing
18:40: Senate Bill 13, while at the same time you've got thousands of people demanding that this bill is heard.
18:46: Russell, here's the thing. We have to bring people into this with us. You and I sound like fanatics and nutcases.
18:54: Yeah. Conspiracy theorists. When we say that it is the pro -life organizations that are stopping the abolition of abortion.
19:03: People hear that and they may tune out and say, you guys are crazy. Russell, we're telling the truth.
19:09: So please explain what that looks like and how do we prove that? What does it look like that this is true?
19:16: The pro -life movement is working against bills to end and criminalize and abolish abortion in Oklahoma.
19:23: Prove it to us. Well, first off, this shouldn't, I know it sounds conspiratorial, but this shouldn't be surprising to anyone who has sort of a biblical worldview.
19:34: Right. This is pretty much, not only that their opposition would come from political and religious authorities, but that they would kind of use some of the tactics that they're using.
19:49: Slander, confusion, divisions. This should not be, the way that we're looking at it, we see these religious authorities and these political authorities meeting together, conspiring to kill a righteous bill and defame a righteous man and those who are helping him and following him.
20:10: And that's what's going on. So this shouldn't be conspiratorial. This should be pretty much, oh yeah, this is what the
20:15: Bible kind of, this is what Jesus warned us of, warned the, you know, beware of the leaven of the
20:23: Pharisees, beware of the leaven of Herod. When you go out doing things in my name, they are going to say all manner of evil things from town to town or from blog to blog, from Facebook post to Facebook post.
20:34: They're going to say all things about you. So this shouldn't be surprising. But I think one of the reasons that we're having the show is that for those who are like, no, no, no, you guys are just kind of weaving this out of nowhere.
20:49: No, it's not actually true. Just through the providence of God, I mean, we're intercepting their actual, you know, unfruitful deeds of darkness.
20:59: They're getting exposed. And that's what this letter from Oklahomans for Life, it is literally the vice president of the
21:07: National Right to Life writing a letter to Julie Daniels, Senator Julie Daniels, the chair of the
21:14: Judiciary Committee in Oklahoma, telling her to make sure that she moves her bill through the process in such a way that it won't get challenged or cross -examined by Senator Silk and that it can pass and not have to be scrutinized.
21:34: I mean, this is, we're not making this up. I mean, it's literally here.
21:41: It's unreal. And where is that available, Russell, so that everyone can go take a look at it?
21:47: Yeah, the letter is actually, we published it on the Free the States Facebook page, and I did a little analysis of it for people because you might read it and think, well,
21:56: I don't see what is so problematic here. So I did a short video to try to explain what's going on in this letter.
22:06: But that's on the Free the States Facebook page, right? Facebook .com slash Free the States. Got it.
22:12: Okay. So when we make the allegation that the pro -life movement is not helping the pro -life movement, which is pro -life to say.
22:23: Ideology, right? Like life. And when we say that, what can we use to describe that the people who are new to this that need to get involved with us in terms of moving forward here to have legitimate, righteous, just victory?
22:39: Why are they trying to stop a bill that would criminalize abortion in Oklahoma?
22:45: Like, what's their reasoning? What are they saying back to you? When you get word back from all these organizations, like, no, not
22:51: SB 13. Oh, it's not murder? No, we kind of believe it is. Well, then why don't you want it stopped?
22:58: What's the answer? Like, what are they saying back to you? Well, let's be charitable for a second.
23:05: I think a lot of these guys involved in this work, whether you're talking about some of the legislators or some of the lobbyists and some of the groups,
23:12: I think they have this real heartfelt desire to save babies. And they haven't really thought about the deeper ideological background of what they're doing.
23:22: And whenever you get into discussions with them, you find out that really what's going on is they do have a lot of fear and they do have a lot of faithlessness.
23:31: I know I'm trying to be charitable and saying that they're fearful and they're faithless, but that's whenever they have a problem with Senate Bill 13, all the excuses are like, we can't challenge the
23:40: Supreme Court because this and that, or if we call abortion murder and say it should be criminalized, the people aren't ready for it, and all this kind of stuff.
23:49: And I think it really does come down to, so you know that passage in 2 Corinthians 4?
23:56: It's like 2 Corinthians 4, 2, right? And it's talking about underhanded, disgraceful ways and scheming.
24:04: And Paul's basically, we have renounced underhanded ways.
24:10: This scheming thing. We're just going to, Paul says he's just going to plainly state the truth.
24:15: I think what's going on is Senate Bill 13 or any bill like it, there's four or five other bills that are very similar to it out in the country right now.
24:24: They are just plainly stating the truth. Abortion is murder. It ought to be abolished. The state's been given a sword to punish evil doers.
24:31: It's evil. This is what's true. And the country and its leaders need to repent of covering this practice with law.
24:41: And the pro -life bills have all been written and designed in this sort of scheming way to try to like get behind that.
24:52: I mean they are definitionally underhanded. These guys will say,
24:57: I believe too that abortion is murder and I want it to be abolished. And he's like, well then how come that's not in your bill?
25:04: And they'll say, well I mean you'll catch them. They'll say, well we've got to be wise. And you know considering the world and the way the world thinks, you're like so you have to be worldly wise.
25:14: And so the abolitionist bill is in that perspective is to say no we're not trying to be worldly wise or pragmatic.
25:23: We're going to trust in the providence of God, bring the truth, justice and mercy of God into conflict with this evil and let it speak for itself.
25:34: Well when you get, I'll let you exactly ask the question after this, but when you get resistance and they say, well this won't work
25:43: Mr. Hunter. This won't work. I mean if it does get put into effect and it becomes law in Oklahoma, it won't work.
25:52: And it could put us in a position where all the pro -life laws that work so hard for they'll disappear in the midst of this and the
26:00: Supreme Court's just going to strike it down. It just doesn't really matter. So it won't work Mr.
26:05: Hunter. Yeah. Well the thing that they tell us like that's just going to get thrown out by the courts.
26:11: That's not constitutional. When they say it's not constitutional, what they mean is it doesn't comply with the Supreme Court's rulings.
26:18: That's what they mean. And of course we're saying we know it doesn't comply with the
26:24: Supreme Court's rulings. We are directly and emphatically challenging it. We're standing up and saying no you're wrong.
26:30: You repent. And we're not going to comply. We're going to defy your tyranny.
26:36: So they're actually looking at what we're doing through their worldview or through their fears or their perspective and they think we're doing something foolish.
26:46: And of course it does appear foolish to them. But I think that if all Christians would unify together and we would say no we've had enough of this.
26:55: 63 million children dead and four and a half decades of legal child sacrifice is enough.
27:02: We're going to be the people of God who say abortion is murder. It ought to be abolished. We do need them to join us.
27:10: But they have to get over their faithlessness. They have to move from being pragmatic men to being providence men.
27:18: And we see this with the abolition of slavery. We see this with various other things in the past. It's once the people of God decide to serve
27:26: God and not man that we're actually going to see change. And there's nothing to fear here. Obey God rather than men.
27:33: Just I'll ask one more. I'm sorry, Zach. I just one more question connected to that to make sure I want to put all this on record for everyone. So this is the most helpful and most useful to everybody.
27:41: Russell, has there ever been a time in American history where a state defied the court, the
27:49: Supreme Court's ruling say on the issue of black people in slavery?
27:55: Has there ever been a time when the state said hashtag hell no? Has anything like that ever happened?
28:01: Oh, yeah. Well, one, to be clear, it's happening right now. Right, right, right. Multiple states that are like saying hell no for marijuana.
28:09: Yes, yes. There are multiple states that are doing it for immigration. You know, there are lesser things that states are just saying, no, we're just going to defy federal law.
28:20: I mean, it is a federal law. No state has the right to practice the distribution of marijuana, either medical or recreation.
28:30: And we have multiple states breaking that now. Arizona's one of them. Yeah, and Oklahoma. I mean, even these conservative states.
28:38: Now, in history, of course, you had constant nullification of the Federal Fugitive Slave Act.
28:45: I mean, people want to say that the nullificationist and the secessionist and the states rights people were all in the
28:51: South and they were on the wrong side of the issue of slavery. But the real fact of the matter is, is the federal fugitive slave laws were being constantly broken and disregarded by everyone working the
29:02: Underground Railroad. And people working the Underground Railroad throughout the South and the
29:07: North helping slaves escape to freedom knew exactly what they were doing. Yep. And there are multiple
29:13: Supreme Court cases on behalf of various slaves and various abolitionists saying, no, you guys are wrong.
29:21: Famously, the Dred Scott decision. But I mean, you had states eventually, the one that always gets brought up is
29:28: Wisconsin and the rescue of the fugitive slave, Joshua Glover.
29:34: Wisconsin basically said, nah, I mean, we're going to let our people rescue these slaves and we're not going to punish them and told the
29:41: Supreme Court to pound sand. Of course, the Supreme Court says, no, you have to follow us. But no one really gets in trouble.
29:48: And this is the stuff that precipitates a change in the heart and mind of the nation to where by the time the
29:56: Civil War ends, they know, like everyone in the country knows we've got to abolish this evil because we've had this
30:02: Civil War. It was about many things, but we know that following a Northern victory, there's no way that we're going to allow slavery to continue because these abolitionists will keep on doing their agitation.
30:16: No application. You have to believe that people saw that principled stand too and saw the injustice and saw that it was possible when courageous men took a stand against a tyrannical authority like the
30:32: Supreme Court. And it's very easy to see that that same kind of thing could be duplicated today if Christians would just take that stand.
30:41: And even when I hear that question, it kind of just, it rubs me the wrong way. Well, does it work?
30:47: That doesn't work. I mean, that's the definition of pragmatism is surrendering principle for the sake of what works.
30:56: And so if we don't have our principles and we don't have our Christian convictions, which are the only thing that give us any authority anyways to come against something like this, then we really don't have any license or authorization to fight to begin with.
31:12: And so if we're going to look to a court, which in my mind, it seems like on both sides of the aisle, whether you're
31:20: Republican or Democrat, it seems like they are placing the
31:26: Supreme Court in such a high position of authority that it just becomes a matter of who can control that body in order to affect the outcome of what's going to take place.
31:35: And I would just say that's not a Christian way of thinking. I don't think. To have one group of men as the authority structure and you just try to play this endless game of who can get enough seats to dictate the outcome of the engagement, like instead of standing on righteousness, biblical principles,
31:52: God's word to dictate and to tell these men and women, here's what you must do when something is purely and obviously lawless like abortion.
32:01: Yeah, and it's insane. It really does actually come down to like five people. Right, just the majority is all you need.
32:07: It's like majority on the Supreme Court. Yeah, the country's being ruled by five people. Yeah. Ultimately.
32:14: Yeah, that's powerful. Hey, so let's do this. Again, Russell, everyone's asking questions.
32:20: Russell Hunter, freethestates .org. Also go check out the Facebook page. He just mentioned he did a video explaining the confidential, quote -unquote confidential letter that fell by God's providence into his lap.
32:31: So go check that out, guys. Why not just, and this is again for new listeners right now, why not just approach this with neutrality?
32:41: Why not play the game? Like, why does this have to be a fundamentally Christian movement? I mean,
32:47: I thought there's a separation of church and state. We don't want this to, we don't want to just be Christians in this fight. They're just gonna ignore us.
32:52: They're gonna dismiss everything that we say. If we're standing explicitly on a Christian worldview using the gospel to come into conflict, if we're using
32:59: Christian terminology, then we're not gonna be as, quote, effective. So why do you believe that this has to be gospel -centered
33:08: Why do you believe that this has to be done from a consistently Christian perspective without neutrality?
33:13: Why? Yeah, I'm gonna say something that's gonna sound pragmatic here. You ready? Uh -huh.
33:19: This is actually going to be the thing, the only thing, that actually works. Yes! Yeah, right. God rewards that faithfulness.
33:27: It's the only thing, so everything else undermines itself, right? So you've got all these bills that say, well, we've got to do this pragmatic -wise, you know, chipping away at abortion type thing because we can't just kind of go in there like Christian prophets and say abortions, murder, it should be abolished.
33:47: Oh, yes, we can. We got to do this other thing. Well, then you look at their bills and you're basically, you look at them and they refute themselves.
33:55: You just read them back to them and you're saying, did you just write a bill that says you can murder your child so long as you look at them on an ultrasound screen first?
34:06: And they're like, oh man, yeah, I guess I did. I guess it sounds pretty bad when you say it like that. Or like the Christians come forward and they're like, listen,
34:12: I believe that you shouldn't kill children in the case of rape, but like, who am I to walk in their shoes?
34:18: And you say, well, the word of God says that, you know, he wants us to stand up and establish justice for the fatherless.
34:24: Are you saying that we should punish children to death for the crimes of their fathers? And then all of a sudden they're like, well, no,
34:31: I'm not saying that. So, I mean, there's a sort of way that they sort of undermine themselves constantly throughout the process.
34:39: But ultimately, like, and I think that y 'all talk about this a lot, but if you want to know why is it that some people find a pro -life approach or pro -life bill appealing and other people find an abolition bill appealing,
34:54: I think it does ultimately begin with how they're looking at the world, how they look at sin.
35:00: So if you look at sin and abortion is clearly sin, it's a murder, you say, well, how does the
35:08: Bible say we ought to treat sin? Well, the Bible is very clear. When you have sin and you recognize it as sin, there's a radical cutting off of it.
35:16: There's a confession of the sin and then the no longer doing it. Because the idea is if you kind of incrementally do it, you keep it around, it's going to always be there.
35:25: You can't play with sin. You got to pluck your eye out. You got to cut your hand off. You know, when you find the law, you've got to tear down the high places because allowing sin keeps it around.
35:36: So just, you know, pragmat, practically speaking, the idea that you can abolish abortion by allowing it all along the way for all these different reasons is utterly foolish.
35:51: It's intellectually self -refuting and foolish and ultimately biblically, you know, unwise.
35:58: And I'd say anything in the Bible, the Bible is not just saying, hey, this is biblical. It's saying this is also true.
36:05: True. Yes. That's right. Okay, so I have a quick question. Maybe you can help us with this. Are there attempts being made around SB 13 now?
36:16: And I think you mentioned it, but why don't we just try this bill, guys? Let's all support this one.
36:21: Like the new wave of SB 13 that isn't quite criminalizing, right? But this is really good, guys.
36:27: Like they still want to kind of save face and like create, what does that look like? And what would your answer be to it?
36:33: Yeah, so they are doing that. They all, just a little background for people who haven't followed everything, when the
36:42: Baptist General Convention, when a couple of guys there in leadership got together and wrote a sort of unilateral letter saying
36:49: Baptists in Oklahoma don't support Senate Bill 13, it backfired and, you know, 50, 60 pastors immediately, like within the day that that letter came out and said, no, no, no, we do support
37:01: Senate Bill 13 and you guys don't speak for us. And we had a rally and a bunch of these brothers came and spoke on behalf of SB 13.
37:11: The Baptist General Convention sort of got caught, you know, and so now they're kind of like, well, wait, you're saying we're not pro -life and we're saying, well, we're just saying that you're not for the abolition of abortion and, you know, we're trying to educate them there.
37:25: So right now they're scrambling to save face and say that they're going to put forward a better bill with better language that has a better chance of ending abortion in Oklahoma.
37:38: So they proposed House Bill 1182, which is a scheming sort of roundabout way to try to end abortion by taking away the medical licenses of doctors who perform abortions.
37:53: The problem here, it should be obvious, you can't take away medical license to do something that you won't call criminal.
38:01: Yes. As soon as you said it to me, that's the first thing I thought. The question is, why should we?
38:06: It doesn't get to the point of definitions, right? What is abortion? Yeah. And the abortionist can actually look at that and say, look,
38:16: I'm looking at, there's like 30 pages in the Oklahoma statutes saying all the different things that I have to do to murder children in the womb.
38:25: And then you've got this thing saying that I don't have a license. One, even if that passes and they say they're going to enforce it, the federal government is going to rule it unconstitutional, right?
38:36: That's what they're going to do. They're going to say, no, abortionists need to be able to kill babies in Oklahoma. This is the right of mothers.
38:45: Well, the sponsors of this bill and the groups that support this bill are going to be like, well, we did everything we could.
38:52: Because it isn't written in such a way that is directly challenging them. It doesn't create that fight.
38:58: So even if it did sort of scheme a way to end abortion by removing these licenses, even if that were possible, it'll get thrown out.
39:07: They're not enforcing it because they're not beginning with this sort of defy tyrants attitude that we think that they need to have.
39:14: I like it. Defy tyrants. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. I love that verse you quoted too.
39:19: In 2 Corinthians, we refuse to practice cunning or tamper with God's word, man. Cunningness is not a
39:26: Christian virtue in that sense of masking the language of the gospel and speaking truth into this area.
39:32: So it totally fits. Yeah. I want to say something too, Russell. I mean, you're a big history guy.
39:39: You love history. And I love to listen to you talk about history. But one of the things
39:45: I think I want to encourage our brothers and sisters to do right now who are watching this across the country and around the world, I don't want to give you directives.
39:53: I'm not commanding you to do anything. I'm not trying to act like I have a position of authority over you. I want to encourage you with this.
39:58: Go read the book of Acts and look at how the early church, the apostles actually engaged the world around them. Look how they preached the gospel with boldness, standing on the principles of the word of God and His truth.
40:10: Look how they brought the authority of Jesus Christ in this gospel in the conflict with the world. Look how they faced their magistrates and how they actually said things like, we must obey
40:17: God rather than men. Look how they took beatings for the Lord Jesus and actually walked away rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for His name.
40:25: Look at how the apostle Paul is being brought to trial. Look at how they're actually coming into conflict with the culture around them with the gospel.
40:32: Then riots are breaking out. Look at how Paul's being lowered out of windows because of what he's doing with the gospel of the kingdom.
40:39: And then look at history. I mean, just take a snippet of history. Just look at our own country's history,
40:45: American history, and look at the Christians who came into conflict with their governments. Look at the Christians who were standing on the word of God and taking risks with their lives, their bodies, their goods, their families.
40:57: Look at that and then look at the fruit that God brought from it. I think Russell makes an amazing point.
41:02: I love that. This is the pragmatic way. You want what works? It's God's word. It's the gospel.
41:08: It's the power of God for salvation. I'm sorry. I don't want to come into conflict with abortion from a position of neutrality.
41:15: I don't want to trim around the edges of abortion. I want this evil ended forever and ever for the glory of Jesus Christ.
41:23: And I am quite satisfied. And I know Russell is and Zach is. I'm quite satisfied with going down in flames on this one if it means justice for the fatherless.
41:32: Yeah, if this isn't worth it, then what is? Yeah. And honestly, we wouldn't go down in flames.
41:39: I mean, I don't want to be too... I think we're all post -millennialists here. Woo! Yes. Yes, sir.
41:45: But I don't think we'd go down in flames. No. The thing that's delaying us right now is all this sort of faithless pragmatism.
41:53: And so it's ironic. But when you talk about acts, these people turned the world upside down.
42:00: Yep. And they were, you know, yes, they were told, stop doing this. And they kept on doing it.
42:06: Yeah. And if we could get all those who are professing in the name of Jesus Christ to unify in that sort of spirit of...
42:14: It's just like strength and understanding. Like, you know, God has told us to do this. I'm going to stay with what he's told us to do and go do it.
42:22: I think we'd be tremendously successful. Amen. It's not mathematically out of our reach as well, especially when you're talking about Oklahoma.
42:32: I know. If you sent out a survey and said, is abortion murder and should be abolished to like all the legislators, and it wasn't them voting on a specific bill, you'd come back and he's like, yeah, we're 90 % of them.
42:46: Yeah, that's right. Well, praise God. We're going to continue to pray for you, brother. I'm so happy about all that you're doing there.
42:51: I keep seeing things from you, and I'm just blessed, blessed, blessed. So encouraged by what God is doing through all of your labor out there, and specifically all your effort right now that you're putting in out there.
43:00: We love you, and we want to make sure they provide the proper biblical love and support to you out there. So what, for the moment, what's the most important thing for us all to do to support the work that you're doing?
43:10: And then where can people go to make sure that they're updated and know what's going on? Yeah, so I think that it, right now the most important thing to be doing in regard to this bill is we're in this phase of lots of education.
43:26: We need lots of people thinking and speaking and getting into threads and standing up for what's true and what's good.
43:36: And so we need people very engaged, and we need them to be engaged on the right platforms and in the right threads.
43:43: So if people can kind of die to themselves and watch a little less TV and that sort of thing and make sure they're at events and at rallies and all that kind of stuff, that's very important.
43:55: We try to keep people up to date on the Free the States Facebook page, and we have a Twitter feed and all that kind of stuff.
44:01: But we're small. We just started. So if you're really interested in what's going on, especially if you live in Oklahoma or Texas or Idaho or Alaska or Indiana, any of these places where they have sort of these different groups, they're all run by different people, but they're all good brothers.
44:20: There's Abolish Abortion Texas, there's Abolish Abortion Indiana, Abolish Abortion Alaska, all these different groups.
44:27: Plug in and figure out what's going on in your area. So in Oklahoma, sign up with us.
44:36: I mean, freethestates .com or .org. You can sign up. You can become a member. You can do all that kind of stuff.
44:41: But really, we just want your email so we can say, hey, this is kind of out of nowhere, but we need to have a couple hundred people up at the
44:49: Capitol because we need to convince these legislators that think that the people of Oklahoma are just going to follow them in whatever schemey thing they're doing, that they're no longer getting away with it.
45:00: So get plugged in, get super active, keep on listening to programs like this and talk to a lot of people.
45:06: Secondly, there is this sort of need for prayer that goes beyond sort of the cliche, pray.
45:15: We're experiencing quite a bit of spiritual warfare, quite a bit of slander, quite a bit of opposition from some pretty powerful people right now.
45:24: And I spend a lot of time with Senator Silk. And sometimes you leave his office and you think, man, when is this brother going to break?
45:35: I don't really see a sign of him breaking, but he's pretty alone standing there. I mean, there's a number of people that support him, but you've got people coming in and out of all the other offices, like this letter from Tony, basically saying,
45:49: I mean, it outlines Senator Silk. Like, make sure that your bill doesn't get seen by Senator Silk.
45:54: So there's a lot of defamation going on. So prayer would be very, very important right now. All right.
46:00: Well, we are obviously still at the beginning of this thing. We're behind you, brother. So we're just grateful for you and all the work you're doing.
46:06: And also tell your wife that we said thank you to her for being your wife and being faithful to you in the midst of this and supporting you.
46:13: The thing is, people don't understand, and you know this, especially now, people don't really understand the kind of difficulty and labor that goes into these sorts of things in terms of your family.
46:27: But just going home to your wife, your wife is lifting you up and encouraging you. She's feeling the weight of all this as well.
46:34: So when you have situations like this where you're engaged in this kind of ministry, this kind of conflict, our wives are also experiencing every little bit of all of these difficulties.
46:41: And they're the ones that are usually first to receive the unloading of all of that when you walk through the door.
46:47: Yeah, and the spiritual attacks like your wives experienced that way. So just know that we're praying for you and your wife too, brother.
46:53: And we're in this with you. We're supportive, and we're grateful for all that you're doing. And so we'll be checking in with you soon.
46:59: Hopefully we'll have you back again soon so we can just get an update and figure out how we can better support you. Totally, man.
47:04: Thank you. All right, man. God bless you. Thanks, brother. God bless you. Okay, talk to you soon. All right, so there you go, guys.
47:10: Hey, I didn't realize that was gonna go actually quite so long, and I'm glad that it did. Yeah, good stuff happening. Absolutely.
47:15: So I think I'm excited about what's happening. Yeah, I can't wait till we get into some of those things here, just in terms of being in front of legislators, calling them to do the right thing.
47:27: And I just consider it, we're in such a blessed position to have other brothers and sisters doing it so we can look at what they're doing.
47:34: We can talk to one another. We can strategize together. We can pick each other's brains. That's so important.
47:39: We've had now three, I think we're up to three now in Arizona over the last two years, representative senators who have essentially agreed to do this with us, what
47:50: Senator Soka's doing. And then when it gets time to actually start that process, they fall away.
47:56: Because I think, like Russell said, it's fear. There's a lot of fear. And you're really putting yourself out there.
48:03: You really are. I mean, you're opening yourself up to, I mean, your family could potentially become an object of attack.
48:10: And that's scary to think about. There's a lot at stake if you take a stand. There is, there is. So just be in prayer for across the country for God to raise up a lot of Senator Joseph Silks all over the country.
48:22: And in particular, be in prayer for him and his family right now, for Russell Hunter and his family right now as they endure this.
48:27: I can't tell you the kind of hardships that go on behind the scenes when you're involved in tough ministry like this.
48:33: Zach can tell you that in the last two months even, a lot of spiritual attacks endured by our families.
48:40: And that's just one of the tools of the enemy. And so be in really deep prayer for these men and their families right now.
48:45: Protection, blessing, joy, delight in God, peace, all those things. Be in prayer for us as well because we're in this battle too.
48:52: And I can tell you, the last two months of this year have been some of the toughest we've ever had in ministry. And it's because of a lot of spiritual attacks.
48:59: Yeah. It was like 2019. It was like gates open. Yeah, floodgates. Go get them. Floodgates. And so just be in prayer for all of us as we endure this.
49:06: And then join us. Doesn't that sound great? Yeah. So come be a part of what's going on. So come on. It's wonderful in here.
49:13: No, it truly is. I don't want to do anything else. But so be in prayer and freethestates .org.
49:19: Go to the Freethestates Facebook page and check in. Make sure you guys get involved.
49:25: We need you. Listen, if you can't be a part of this in terms of getting to an event, okay.
49:32: If you can't give anything towards these, okay. We really wish you could just get involved and give in some way.
49:39: But if you can't, you know what you can do right now? You can do? You can share this right now.
49:45: Yeah. Get the word out. Listen to Russell explain the distinctions between the pro -life movement and actually working to end abortion, right?
49:53: Yeah. So clear. Very clear. Look at the distinctions made between, say, a Christian approach and a schmoozy approach, right?
50:02: Schmoozy. And I'm trying to be as gracious and loving as I possibly can because we need to. But I really want you to just consider what's being said here and then help us to communicate that message.
50:12: We need you. Yeah. I don't think that we have recognized yet the power of the share button.
50:18: Can I share this with you? In terms of an encouragement, a blessing in all this, four years ago, four years ago,
50:27: I was asked to speak at a local conference on boldness, I think, for the gospel.
50:34: And I went and I had an entire message prepared and I was up all week long.
50:41: I'm not usually like that. As a matter of fact, that's the only time it's ever happened to me, like that.
50:47: Oh, where you changed it on the spot? Well, no, it's like this. So what happened was, it was actually this first time
50:53: I'm announcing this, I think on air. I will have times where I'll wake up once that week and I feel like the
50:59: Lord wakes me up and I'm thinking about the message like at four in the morning. I'm praying on it and thinking on it.
51:05: I'm like, I don't know what that was about. Go back to sleep, right? Well, this week I was up every single night like God kept just waking me up and my mind would be flooding with what
51:16: I needed to say. And so I would write stuff down. So I sort of like prepared the message and wrote it out.
51:22: And then when I get to the conference, I get to the conference with all these Christian leaders and pastors and things like that.
51:27: And I'm speaking to all these pastors and up and coming pastors and things. And so all of a sudden
51:32: I completely changed course and I'm not even doing what I was supposed to be doing, but I'm preaching this message and it all essentially points to boldness in the gospel.
51:43: And then I relate it to abortion. And then I bring up the first baby that we had saved and held from an abortion mill and named
51:51: Carmelo. And so we just do it and it was a blessing. We didn't think much of it.
51:56: And we just shared the video. We shared the video. And now that video is now one of the most viewed sermons on YouTube.
52:04: We just dropped it. And it's like almost 3 million views. And I'm gonna just say this, the fruit that God is still bringing from that, not only did that save people from actually going to abortion mills and they came to Christ, I heard so many stories like that.
52:17: People were about to have an abortion and God led them to that video and their child's alive today because of this video, this message that I gave at some conference and then people coming to Christ because of that video.
52:26: And then guess what? We have a new member of our church now. I'm baptizing him on Sunday. He was an atheist.
52:33: He came to Christ three or four weeks ago watching that video. Oh, no kidding.
52:39: Yeah, he came to Christ watching that video. And so what I'm saying is in all this, you don't realize,
52:45: I think, we don't realize the power of the share button. Yeah. It's like sending off, like early
52:52: Christians when they were handing out New Testaments, that's what they were doing. They're hitting the share button. Share the New Testament. Share the New Testament.
52:59: You need to join with us in sharing these messages. Get the word out with us about the gospel coming into conflict with abortion.
53:06: We need you. And matter of fact, I'll say a word on this. 350 churches now? No, 300.
53:12: We're over 330 right now. Okay, 330. But just an update on end abortion now. And as an example from what happens when you share that kind of content from us just going to a local city council meeting, now what's happening, you have a church in Pittsburgh that I got an email from said that they just went and spoke at their city council.
53:32: Got one from Texas, Austin, Texas. Got one from Florida. Got one from Virginia. This is all within the last week or two so that we've received these.
53:40: And we posted one of them recently, but that's just one example of hitting the share button, people seeing that and going, okay,
53:47: I can do that. Because I have people now that are emailing me saying, okay, what do I need to do? How do I figure this out? What do
53:53: I say? I watched your guys' video, but I need to know, what do I say? Do I attack it from this angle?
53:59: How do I find out the details? And so we're actually trying to guide people now, guide Christians, guide churches that are partnered with us or becoming partnered with us to presenting this message before their local legislatures.
54:09: And that is just powerful to see the direction of end abortion now, going from church ministry outside of an abortion clinic now to being brought into the public square in such a new and exciting and refreshing way.
54:21: Then the majority of the Christian church is done. Like I was told, going to the city council, or I said this in my talk,
54:29: I said, I realize it's odd to see a Christian here talking about scripture and Bible verses because it is.
54:36: That's just not something Christians do. And so the fact that God is gracious enough to allow us to have that impact as a result of the media says so much about him and so very little about us.
54:47: And I think it's powerful too. I have a great book on my shelf. It's actually two volumes and it's sermons from the political era.
54:53: And what it is is it's Christian ministers, pastors. It was normative, commonplace, expected, anticipated for the
55:01: Christian ministers locally to go to their legislature and for them to sit down and listen to the pastor preach a sermon to them about God's law and God's justice.
55:09: It was normative. Now that's the context from which we got Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, the
55:16: Constitution. It was because people were hearing Christian ministers proclaim the truth and God's law to the legislature.
55:24: It was normal. And that's the kind of world that it shaped. We lost Christian speaking in that way to the legislature.
55:30: And now how do you like your world? Yeah. That's the only question. How do you like it now?
55:35: How do you like me now? Yeah. How's your neighborhood? Yeah. How's your neighborhood? And so we need to get back to that.
55:42: And yes, praise God for the over 330 churches now that are now actively involved in bringing the gospel into conflict with abortion at the abortion mills.
55:50: And now praise God for all of you who have actually now started joining Apologia Church and others as we go to our local city councils and legislatures to speak as Christians to them.
56:00: Right. To call them to Christ and to demand justice for the unborn. It's amazing. I'm dropping three more over the next two days of more conflict going on at the legislature with Christians speaking the truth at the legislature.
56:13: You can join us. Go to endabortionnow .com to go and get all the free resources and free training. Endabortionnow .com
56:19: is a ministry for churches across the country to now get involved in the area of ending abortion in your state.
56:29: And everything is free. Do you hear that? It's free because Christians just like you gave towards this work to make it all possible.
56:36: It's free. Your signs are free. Your stuff is free. We send you stuff. The training is free.
56:42: We don't want anything from that local church. We just want to give it away to them. Christians all join together to make it possible.
56:48: And I know yesterday my son, he's my assistant, and Zach, they put together 17 orders in one day yesterday for churches.
56:55: Yeah. And we need more materials. This is the thing. You guys need to keep helping, keep giving. You guys are so generous in providing for this ministry because you're serving the local church, not only in the
57:06: United States, but abroad. Oh, yeah. Internationally. Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
57:13: We got word from Africa, South Africa. South Africa. Sounds crazy. Babies are saved from abortion in South Africa because of End Abortion Now and this ministry and your giving.
57:23: Right. You made it possible. And we can't even keep our kits stocked because we're going through the materials so quickly.
57:28: Churches keep signing up and getting them. So if you hear that, please be patient. We're working to get everything to you. Yes, we're trying to get to you guys.
57:34: We are a small operation here and everything is being given away. So that is good word to endabortionnow .com.
57:41: You can go and you can give there right now to help make all this possible to join with us. And just know for all of you guys who are connected with us in End Abortion Now, we are in the process right now of building a brand new curriculum, free training for you guys to teach you how to create your own media ministry like Apologia Studios so that it's not merely us with a platform saying these things but you can join in as well.
58:02: And so go to endabortionnow .com to get signed up. Go there to give as well for those of you guys that want to help to save more lives and end abortion in our world.
58:11: So I think that's probably good for today. We didn't plan on going so long. But we'll do a show next week.
58:16: I'll commit to doing a show next week with you guys on the issue of Mormonism. We'll do an episode on Mormonism, engaging with Mormonism, listening to Mormon conversations, those sorts of things.
58:25: So join with us next week for that content. Don't forget, guys, Meat Fest. Meat Fest 2019 is happening soon.
58:35: When you give an Apologia, kawaii .com slash Meat Fest 2019, we put you in a big thing.
58:40: We want to bless two people anywhere in the United States of America. We're going to fly you out, put you in a sweet hotel, bring you here, bring you on the show, and then take you to the best, best meat meal ever.
58:53: You're going to get to go this year. Really? Yes. Yeah. All right. It's amazing. We're going to have a blast.
58:59: So just go to ApologiaKawaii .com slash Meat Fest 2019. You can give towards the work at Apologia Kawaii.
59:07: And that's it, guys. We love you. We're thankful for you guys. We'll catch you guys next week right here on Apologia Radio. Later.