Sermon: You Shall Not Pervert Justice

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Okay, saints, if you would open your Bibles to Deuteronomy 27.

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Book of Deuteronomy 27, verse 19.

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Deuteronomy 27, verse 19. Hear now the word of the living and the true

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God. Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

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And all the people shall say, Amen. Amen. Thus far is the reading of God's holy and inspired word.

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Let's pray together as His people. Lord, speak to Your church through Your Word, by Your Spirit, God.

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Lord, You say that unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. And so,

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Lord, we ask that You would build the house that You put Your hand of blessing on, Lord.

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Well, we've set our hand to, Lord, be glorified. Be glorified.

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In the testimony of Your truth, the witness of Your people, the proclamation of Your Gospel, Lord, and the proclamation of Your Word in the public square, be glorified,

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God. Lord, speak by Your Spirit in this generation through Your truth. Lord, I pray that You would bring repentance within any of us, all of us, who are apathetic to the evil around us.

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Lord, by Your Spirit, create within us a passion and a perseverance that would see this race to the end.

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Lord, as we contemplate today Your Word and Your truth and the failures of those even within our camp, we pray that You would bring reformation and transformation.

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And in the end, we are asking You, Lord, to establish justice for the sake of the pre -born.

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And we ask that You would do it not for our sake, not for our glory, but for the sake of Your name and Your fame throughout all the earth.

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In Jesus' name, Amen. Deuteronomy 27, verse 19, it's not the first place that God has had this discussion or only place

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God has had this discussion about fatherless children. It's something that really runs as a thread from the

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Old Testament throughout the New Testament. The concern in the heart of God for fatherless children, the orphan, the widow.

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It's something that God goes back to repeatedly. He has a very special place in His world because of the fall for orphans, fatherless children.

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And we see that word even in the New Testament. We look at the orphan, the fatherless. It's somebody who is without a guardian, somebody without a father, somebody without a mother, somebody who's not there to stand in their place to protect them, to love them, to nurture them.

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And so God has a very special place, again, from the Old Testament into the New Testament for the fatherless, the orphan.

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And people may wonder why as a church do we focus so much energy and we risk so much persecution and risk so many arrows coming our direction even from those within the

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Christian camp, the Christian community, the pro -life camp. Why would you do such a thing? And the answer is because we're standing on the rock of God's Word.

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God is the unchanging God. His heart towards the fatherless hasn't changed, will never change.

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His demand for justice in the earth hasn't changed, will never change. It's something we know as a church body.

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We've talked about it often. There's a failure in the evangelicalism of the West today in that we think that there's this

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Old Testament God of justice that cares about justice, that cares about the plight of the fatherless.

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He cares about those things there, but now we have the New Testament where He's just a God of grace and mercy. Everything just goes to that cross.

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And that's really all God is concerned with is bringing people to heaven one day. And that's it. The heart of God has really changed in those ways.

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He's not caring today as caring today about righteousness and justice in the land.

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But what do we know about the Word of God? He says, I am the Lord. I do not change.

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He doesn't change. And the premier example that God is concerned with justice in the

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New Covenant is the fact that we have a cross. That cross screams to the world in every generation until Christ returns that God is a

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God of justice. He will not pervert justice. He will not ignore justice. He cares so much about righteousness and justice that the

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Lord Jesus dies on a cross to take that justice and penalty in Himself for the people of God, those who trust in Jesus.

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God is a God of justice, and He is unchanging. And when you look at a text like this in Deuteronomy 27, hear it again.

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One more time. Hear it again. Cursed, cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

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My emphasis today, of course, is on the fatherless. We need to talk about the others as well. Of course we do.

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But for our time and what God has called us to as the people of God, I want to talk about this fatherless child.

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God says in His Word, Cursed are you. Cursed are you.

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Anyone who perverts the justice due to the fatherless. That means cursed is the

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Christian leader who perverts justice or stands for bills of injustice over the fatherless.

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Cursed are the pro -life leaders. Cursed is the pro -life establishment that perverts justice for the fatherless.

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We've been here before, brothers and sisters. Throughout history, the Christian church has conquered a lot of enemies.

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A lot of enemies. A lot of injustice through the Gospel and the proclamation of God's Word. We were here before in this nation with the evil, abominable practice of the kidnapping and enslaving of our black brothers and sisters.

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We've been here before. We've been here before where the Christian church in some corners is apathetic.

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They don't really care. They'll affirm the truths of Scripture. Yeah, that black man is in the image of God.

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Yes, we're all of one blood. All of us go back to the same parents. Amen. They'll affirm those truths, but they won't do anything about it.

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They support bills then, did you know this, of regulation. Bills of partiality.

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Say, now I know that it's a tragedy that this black man is abused and beaten and cut up, so why don't we do this?

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Let's put some legislation forth that says, okay, it's kind of a cruel practice, and technically he's a human, but not really a person.

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He's property. So let's just say, let's put some legislation in that makes it more comfortable for him.

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Let's deal with the chains that we put around him, make him a little more comfortable. Let's give him some room to be comfortable and treated with some dignity.

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That's happened before. And it was the Christian abolitionists in this nation, in both the

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North and the South, who spoke with a consistent Christian witness and testimony against that abominable practice.

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They spoke the Gospel. They spoke the Word of God. They stood on the truth, and brothers and sisters, it was only, only through that faithful proclamation of the

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Word of God that we put that evil under the feet of Jesus. It was not through compromise.

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It was not through inconsistency. It was not atheism that ended slavery in this nation.

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It was the consistent witness of the Christian church calling it what God called it, saying that the plantation owners who were involved in the trade and the practice deserved, according to God's own

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Word, capital punishments. Because if you kidnap and enslave another image -bearer of God, God abhors that practice, and He says you deserve to lose your life.

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That was the witness of the Christian church during the time of abolition in this nation. But then, as now, you had those who professed to love the

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Lord, who professed to love the Word of God, who just wanted to pervert justice.

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They wanted to say, maybe we can go halfway. Brothers and sisters, you cannot and you will not defeat evil ever by compromising with it.

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Ever. And it is the Word of God that brings transformation.

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It is not compromise. You do not dispel darkness by hiding your light.

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God says this, curse it is anyone who perverts the justice due to the fatherless child.

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And that's why we fight the way that we do. We started this not as professionals. We didn't know what we were doing.

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We weren't trying to start jumping into an industry. We weren't doing this to make money. We started as a very small church because God challenged us as a church that we have, not far from where we worship, places where they are killing children.

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They are dismembering them. They are disemboweling them. These are image bearers of God in the womb and it's happening within a mile or two of where we're located, where we're worshiping.

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So what are we doing? We're commanded to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That's a challenging thing to consider.

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How would I want someone to stand for my life? We need to stand for them. We knew the problem was not a problem of they just don't know.

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We need to stand out there and pray the rosary or put tape over our mouths and let's see how far that goes. We knew the problem is a sin issue.

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It's a problem of the heart and the only way that's changed is through the proclamation of God's truth and God's gospel.

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So we did not know what we were doing. We knew we know the gospel. We knew we love these children, these mothers and fathers.

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We wanted to help them. So we went out there knowing really nothing but that and the very first day we went out, we saved two children from death.

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As that ministry progressed, it was more children. It was more saves. A save here in Phoenix. A save here in Glendale.

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A save here in Tempe. And God started saving children through the ministry of this very small church at the time.

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We weren't professionals. We just went out with the gospel pleading for the lives of these children, calling them to repentance, calling it murder what it actually was.

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Other Christian churches started hearing, believers started hearing about what we were doing and started saying, how are you doing that?

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And so what we would do is say we're going with the gospel, we're calling it what it is, we're offering to help. So they started going.

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They started saving children at the abortion mills. Then God called our church body to start End Abortion Now, and we did.

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God started that so that we could equip and raise up other churches to save children where they're killing them and to bring the witness of the gospel into conflict with this at the legislature.

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God did that through this church body. It's been an amazing thing. It's been honestly an adventure.

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It's been painful. It's been encouraging. It's been God -glorifying. Tens of thousands of lives have been saved through the ministry of this church.

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I remember early on being out there on that very hot sidewalk with many of you. I can remember the days where Matt was holding the speaker on his head with my voice screaming into his ear, holding it out towards the abortion mill.

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I can remember going out there some days and nobody was out there but me or one other person. I remember the very beginning of this, and to see what

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God has done now is an amazing thing. That God has now used our church body to speak the truth of His gospel and His word across the country.

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And as I've said to you over the last couple of weeks, God has used our body to bring in bills of equal protection, abolition.

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It's the image of God fully protected from fertilization to natural death into states across the country.

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It's happening right now. Many of you know I was just in Denver. I just got home last night speaking before the legislature.

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I'm going to tell you more about that in a moment. It was really an amazing thing to see so many Christians going before the legislature preaching

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Christ. Preaching Christ. Calling to repentance. Demanding justice for these children.

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Can I just say this to you? That is not what we've seen in 50 years of Roe versus Wade.

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You did not see that. You did not see that kind of consistent Christian witness calling to repentance and faith in Jesus demanding immediate protection and justice, calling it murder.

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Something is happening now. And it is happening with the truth of God coming from the very people of God.

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When we think about our commitment to this particular ministry, and as I've said, we have so many happening at Apologia Church that are equally important, but when you think about the ministry that we're in, it is so dark.

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It is so evil. It is so hard. It is so taxing. Why continue this fight?

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I was in a room on Friday at a legislature with people there who were fighting for a bill that was suggesting that they should give pain medicine to the child in the womb before they dismember them.

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We had a bill of abolition and equal protection. Justice for the image bearer in the womb from fertilization.

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And behind our bill on the schedule was a bill that said you can kill them, but you have to make them more comfortable by giving them pain medicine.

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I'm sitting in a room with an entire industry next to me who are fighting devoid of the

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Christian message, without Scripture, without the Gospel, not just standing on the truth, but putting bills in that pervert justice for the fatherless.

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I want to remind you what the text says. The text says, cursed be anyone, anyone, who perverts the justice due to the fatherless.

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Anyone. No matter the side, no matter the team. And so why fight? Why look like a crazy person?

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Why go before a legislature and look like you are just this wild -eyed, crazy person?

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Why not fight with the compromise? Why not do the inconsistency? Why not compromise with darkness and compromise with the injustice?

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Why not? And the answer can come from Scripture over and over and over with texts like Deuteronomy 27, verse 19, but I think one of the main ones that continues to be a foundation, a rock for me, is

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Isaiah chapter 1. Go there, brothers and sisters. Isaiah chapter 1.

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This is an important text you've heard me bring before. But I need us as a church to be reminded from God, our

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Savior, as to why we do what we do. In Isaiah chapter 1, verse 10, this is

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God. Isaiah, by the way, is my favorite book of the Old Testament. But this is

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God speaking to His covenant people. So in the modern way, we would put this, here is

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God speaking to His church. Alright? This is God speaking to the covenant people.

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This is God speaking to the church. And here's what He says to them. He says, Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom.

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Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. Here is God. You heard Pastor James speak on this recently.

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This message he gave about the angels and Sodom. Sodom and Gomorrah, obviously not a very good place in redemptive history.

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A place of sin. A place of evil. A place of injustice. A place of abominations.

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And God says to the church, He says, Hear what I'm saying to you.

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Sodom. Gomorrah. He's using the place that they found detestable.

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And He's naming the covenant people of God that. And He says to them,

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What to Me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord? I've had enough of burnt offerings, of rams, and of the fat of well -fed beasts.

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I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before Me, who is required of you this trampling of My courts?

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Bring no more vain offerings, incenses and abomination to Me, new moon and Sabbath, and the calling of convocations.

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I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. You're just pretending.

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You're pretending. It's all this religious stuff. It's all this gathering and convocations. And it's all these sacrifices.

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It's all these programs. You all look very religious. Look like very upstanding

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Christian people. You guys look very religious. And He says, I don't want any of it.

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I can't endure all of this iniquity and sin and your solemn assembly.

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We look so spiritual. We look like we are worshiping God. We look on the outside like it's all together as religious people.

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And God says, I cannot endure your iniquity and your solemn assembly. And so God says, your new moons and your appointed feasts,

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My soul hates. They have become a burden to Me.

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I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you.

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You're going to ask Me for things, and I'm not going to listen. You're going to raise your hands, and you're going to plead, and you're going to beg, and you're going to ask.

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And He says, and I will hide My eyes from you. I can't endure your sinful gatherings and all of your pretentious behavior.

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He says, I will hide My eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, He's not going to listen.

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He won't listen. He will not listen to the prayers of His professing covenant people because of their sin.

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He says, here it is, your hands are full of blood. Your hands are full of blood.

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And here's the word from the Lord. Here it is. Wash yourselves. Make yourselves clean.

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Remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes. Cease to do evil.

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Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression.

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Bring justice to the fatherless. Plead the widow's cause. Here's God talking to His church.

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If I can use that term in the Old Testament. He's saying all this evil, I won't listen. I don't want it. I hate this.

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I hate your religion. I hate your worship. I hate it. And so He says this. Stop doing it.

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Cease to do evil. Stop. Wash yourselves. Remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes.

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And He says this. Cease to do evil. Learn to do good. And here it is. God speaking to His people. The unchanging

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God speaking to His people about all their fictional religious gathering. And He says this.

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Seek justice. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless.

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Plead the widow's cause. And as I've said so often when I've preached on this text, brothers and sisters, this is what is said right before the famous verse.

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The famous verse. You know it. The verse where God says, Come thou, let us reason together, says the

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Lord, though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. We love that part.

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And we should. We should love the promise of God that your sins are washed away. That He sees you as white and not foul and dirty.

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God forgives your sins. God's pleading with His people. I'll forgive your sins. I'll make you white as snow.

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There'll be no more sin between us. This comes after He tells His people. This is wicked and evil.

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Your hands are full of blood. Cease it. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Correct oppression.

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Bring justice to the fatherless. That is our God. He hasn't changed.

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So when someone says, Why be so invested in a ministry like this? Why take the attacks?

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Why deal with all the criticism? Why stand before a legislature that mocks you?

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And the answer is, because this is what's pleasing to God. This is what

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God calls His church to. God hasn't called us into the church for this private romantic relationship with Jesus that has no effect on the world.

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The promise of Messiah, Mashiach, was that He was going to establish justice on the earth, that the coastlands were waiting for His law, that He wouldn't grow faint or weary until He had done so.

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My fear is that we grow faint and weary all the time. I'll confess this ministry is awful.

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It is. I'll confess I want to quit most of the time. I'll confess

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I want to be done with it. I don't want to do this anymore. But the command of God is that you establish justice.

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Seek it. Correct oppression. Bring justice to the fatherless. This is what is pleasing to God. And you could stand there with all this blood in your hands and say,

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I'm still worshiping God, and God says, my soul hates it.

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That's the truth. And so as brothers and sisters, we need to reaffirm this consistently with us.

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Our God is a God of justice, and His heart for the fatherless is incomprehensible.

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For the orphan. For the abandoned. God says in His Word, in Isaiah 10, same book,

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Isaiah 10, here's His Word to those who write sinful and iniquitous unjust laws.

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He says this, woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees and the writers who keep writing oppression to turn aside the needy from justice and to rob the poor of My people of their right, that widows may be their spoil.

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There it is again. And that they may make the fatherless their prey.

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Somebody says, Pastor Jeff, why won't you guys simply accept a bill that says you can enslave the black man, but you've got to make his life comfortable?

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My answer is because God says, woe, eternal condemnation, curse, death upon the person who writes an iniquitous decree that brings injustice upon this man or this child.

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God says, woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees that make, what?

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Fatherless children prey. I had a conversation on Friday.

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We had a bill of equal protection in Colorado. A bill of abolition. Image of God, human from the moment of fertilization, equal protection in the womb and outside of the womb.

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And then I saw another bill on the schedule after mine. As I said, it was a bill that said that you can kill the children in the womb in Colorado, but you've got to give them pain medicine before you do it.

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And I signed up to oppose that bill. That was a pro -life bill by a pro -life legislator.

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I signed up to oppose it, and so the legislator found out I was going to oppose her bill, got word to me that she really wanted to talk.

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She really wanted to talk. Could I talk with her before I oppose the bill? I said, absolutely,

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I'd love to. I'd be honored to. So Friday, we met, had a long conversation, a private conversation.

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Midway through the conversation, she was in tears. She believed in Jesus.

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She was just trying, she said, to have mercy on these children. To which

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I said to her, in my opposition of your bill, I will not take down your dignity. I know where the motivation is coming from.

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You are just trying to bring mercy to these children, but what you haven't considered is that they've already decided these children deserve no mercy.

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And you're fighting in such a way as to beg and plead with these wicked people to be merciful to children that they've already said you can dismember.

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It's a decree, a law of permission that says you can kill them, but you've got to make them comfortable before you do so.

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It is an iniquitous decree that makes these fatherless children pray. And somebody might say, yeah, but what if you could just save some?

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Tell that to Isaiah. How does Isaiah deal with an unjust decree that makes fatherless children pray?

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He says to the person who writes it, he says, woe to you. Woe to you.

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Woe to you for this iniquitous decree that makes a fatherless child pray. I think that we should be actually doing this today in our day with the

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Word of God, under the authority of Jesus, with the proclamation of the Gospel, and with a commitment to actually say without compromise that is unjust.

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That's an iniquitous decree. That is bringing injustice upon the fatherless. We should say what the prophets said.

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We should do what the prophets did. When they dealt with this kind of evil, they said this.

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Woe to you. Not applause. They said woe to you.

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It's an iniquitous decree. And here's the Word of God to those who write iniquitous decrees. It says, verse 3,

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Isaiah 10. What will you do on the day of punishment? Who's He talking to?

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Brothers and sisters, who's God talking to here? He's talking to the rulers who write iniquitous decrees that make fatherless children pray.

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He says, what will you do on the day of punishment in the ruin that will come from afar?

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To whom will you flee for help or where will you leave your wealth? Nothing remains but to crouch among the prisoners or fall among the slain for all this

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His anger has not turned away and His hand is stretched out still. Did you hear that?

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That's the Word of God to those who write iniquitous decrees who perpetrate injustice upon widows and orphans, the fatherless.

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God says, where are you going to go when My judgment falls? When I return to punish?

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He's telling you, He's saying, I haven't forgotten. My hand is still outstretched.

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My anger hasn't been turned away. This is going to fall. And so brothers and sisters, that's why we approach this the way that we do.

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It is for the glory of Jesus Christ. It is because of His Gospel. It is for the sake of these children. We have to stop compromising with evil in our day.

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We need to just speak the truth against it. The enemy that we have, and this is why

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I wanted to spend this Lord's Day doing this, to equip us as a church body. The enemy that we have would surprise you.

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It is not the pro -aborts or the pro -choice movement that is causing us the most difficulty everywhere we try to establish justice.

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The truth is, is the greatest opposition that we get to all that we do as a church and with the other churches and organizations we work with, the greatest opposition is with those who are supposed to be on our team.

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It is the pro -life establishment. It's the pro -life industry. That is who we're fighting against because I want you to know this, we've gotten these bills in the states across the country.

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Do you know who's already killed a bunch of them? Planned Parenthood. Nope. The ACLU.

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Nope. The people who have stand opposed to our bills of equal protection every single time.

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The ones who go into their offices and whisper to them not to pass these bills even though they say that's right, it's just, but not now, or don't pass it.

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It is those in the pro -life establishment, the pro -life movement, because of the heresy of the pro -life establishment at the core, they do not want abolition, they do not want equal protection.

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They have signed their name on the dotted line. They have said we do not want legislators to abolish abortion and provide equal protection to children if it means that the principal person involved, the mother, is going to be seen as guilty in any way.

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So our greatest enemy is those who are actually supposed to be those standing for life.

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Who say when they raise funds, we believe it's human from fertilization, we believe that it's sacred, and it needs to be protected.

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It's our greatest enemy. So we have an enemy that believes, are you ready?

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Three things, at least. Three things that are deadly to this fight. Three things that are not pleasing to God.

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Number one, we have an enemy that believes that we should be neutral in this fight against this injustice over these fatherless children.

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They believe that we should fight with neutrality. They say that. That we're not fighting as Christians, we're not fighting because of the

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Lordship of Jesus, we're not fighting with the Gospel, we're not fighting because the Bible says, we're fighting just on biological terms.

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You know, biology teaches, and it does, it's consistent with the Word of God, that what's in the womb from the moment of fertilization is fully human.

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Yes, biology screams that. It screams it, it's incontrovertible, but the problem is, is you have a day like Friday where I was before the legislature in Denver, and people are trying to argue that this is biologically human from conception, and the man sitting in front of me was wearing a dress.

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They don't care about biology. It's a moral issue.

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You can't convince a man with a beard and a dress that biology is meaningful.

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He's screaming to you that it's not. The problem is a problem of sin in his heart and in our hearts.

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That's the problem. And you're never going to overcome the evil by hiding your light and not testifying with God's Word, God's Scripture.

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They believe you should be neutral in this fight. And Jesus says, Jesus says, whoever is not with Me is against Me.

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That's everywhere. That's in my life personally. That's in my family. That's in the church.

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That's in the public square. Whoever is not with Me is against Me. In the arts. In science.

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In music. In media. In stories. Whoever is not with Me is against Me.

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In the pro -life establishments. Whoever is not with Me is against Me. We either believe that Christ is

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Lord of all, or He's not Lord what? At all. Christ is the

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Lord. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. When did the Christian church believe the lie that we can't bring the

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Word of Jesus into every area of life with authority? How did that happen? How did we get to the place that we believe that the

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Christian message is for these walls and between our eyeballs and between our ears?

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Where did we lose our grip where we believe that we need to hide the message and authority of Jesus when we go to places of power?

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The only way to overcome it is to bring His authority into conflict with it. That's the truth, brothers and sisters.

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No more compromise. The compromise is evil. The compromise is displeasing to God.

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And the compromise is leading to more death. They believe to be neutral in this fight.

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They believe in bills of partiality. They believe that God is glorified. That He's pleased with bills of partiality.

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That you can kill these kids, but not these kids. They celebrate. I saw a message,

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I've told you before, a message come across from one of these major organizations that was actually celebrating, celebrating the fact that they had passed legislation in a state that said that you had to use a different means of dismembering or killing a child in the womb than sharp instruments.

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So they said, we won, we got our bill to pass. You can no longer kill children with sharp instruments. They call that a victory.

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It's an iniquitous decree. Let's call it what it is. And cursed is everyone, everyone who perverts justice for the fatherless.

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Cursed is that bill. Cursed is those who actually put forward those bills. God says so.

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We need to speak against those bills the way that the prophet Isaiah speaks against those bills. Not, I guess so.

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I guess we've saved some. We should say what Isaiah says. Woe to you. Woe to you.

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Woe to you for that iniquitous decree. Woe to you for propagating injustice among us.

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They believe in bills of partiality. They believe in acquitting the guilty. And this is one of the most devastating aspects of it.

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This is the central thing. This is the hinge upon which the whole thing turns. They believe in acquitting the guilty.

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For 50 years, the establishment has indoctrinated the Christian church, including pastors, including ministers of the gospel, that the woman who willfully kills her child in the womb is not to be seen as guilty.

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She is to be given immunity. And everywhere that we've fought, the voices coming from the national organizations and the larger local organizations is that you cannot pass those bills of justice.

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Yes, we agree with it. Yes, it's true. It is completely consistent. But if it says that the mother and father who deliver their child to be butchered is in any way guilty, then we don't want it to pass.

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They believe that mothers who murder their children in the womb are themselves victims like their babies.

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And because of that, brothers and sisters, they set themselves against Christ, His gospel, and the entire history of the

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Christian church. That belief is not only unbiblical, it is not orthodox in terms of the entire confession of the

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Christian church since the very beginning, and it is something that is entirely destructive. Our church is filled with women who have had abortions, and they are forgiven.

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They are washed. You are cleansed. There's nothing left. It's finished.

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We're all level at that cross. You are righteous in Jesus, but there's not a woman in here who loves

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Jesus, who has this in her past, who will lie about it and say that she's not guilty.

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You've all taken it to Jesus, and He took it from you. And the establishment says to these women, you don't need

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Jesus. You don't need the gospel. You're a victim like your baby.

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You've done nothing wrong. You have nothing to say sorry for. And every minister, every

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Christian, and every one of you who's ministered to a sister who's had an abortion is sitting there squinty -eyed going, wait a minute, that's not the message of Scripture.

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The message of Scripture is Jesus forgives liars, adulterers, and murderers. He forgives us all.

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But you have to come to Him. What's the message of the gospel? How does it start? Repent and believe in the good news.

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And the pro -life establishment has come into the Christian church and into legislatures across the country and convinced them that women who kill their children in the womb are not guilty of anything.

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In Louisiana, they fought against our bill. They signed a national letter that went across to legislators across the country with 76 of the largest pro -life organizations in the nation.

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And they told legislators in opposition to our bill, when it was on the floor to be voted on, they said, we do not want you to pass any bill that would say the mother is guilty of anything.

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In Arizona, when we put our bill in, many of you guys served together for that bill of justice for these fatherless children.

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When our bill went in, it was fought against by the establishment here. Kathy Harrod, the head of the pro -life establishment in Arizona, fought against our bill.

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She told the legislators, don't pass that bill. Don't pass it. And she put a public post up on Twitter that said, in the pro -life movement, we oppose bills that would lead to punishment for women.

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We believe both mother and baby are victims equally. And so then she put her own bill in.

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Many of you guys know this. Her bill said, you can kill them, but you've got to give them a proper burial.

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Isn't that nice? Injustice. That's a perversion of justice over these fatherless children.

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She said, you can kill them, but you can't kill them for the express purpose or reason that they have a genetic abnormality, to which you all know what

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I say to that. I've said it a million times. Anybody in Arizona can get around that bill easily, and I told her as much.

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All you have to say is simply, I'm not killing it because it has Down syndrome. I love kids with Down syndrome. I'm killing it because I hate it, and I want it dead.

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That's how you get around that bill. It was irrelevant. But then she did something else. She put repeal of 13 -3604 into the bill.

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That was the standing law in Arizona that said it was a crime for the mother to kill her baby in the womb. She decriminalized it in Arizona.

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Yes, the pro -life establishment decriminalized abortion for the mother in the state of Arizona. They did it.

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She did it. Because of the central heretical teaching that the woman who kills her child in the womb, one of the principles, is not guilty.

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This is, by the way, you've heard me saying, it's a heresy. Christians, we disagree on some things.

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Amen? Yes? I mean, some of you guys in this room, you have strong Presbyterian commitments, and I love you, and many of you are better believers and Christians than I'll ever be.

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Some of us don't have that commitment. You're at a Reformed Baptist church. There are some differences over how we baptize children, when we baptize children, those things.

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Some of you guys are what would be called charismatic. Right? And that's okay.

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Just don't get weird. Right? We have differences of opinion.

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Christians have had differences of opinion on the adiaphora, the side issues, throughout the history of the Christian church.

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It's okay. We're together on the core. We're together on Scripture. We're together on who

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Jesus is. We're together on the Trinity. We're together on salvation in Christ and in Christ alone. We're together on the resurrection.

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We're together on our resurrection and the day of judgment. We are together. But we have had some differences and it continues to happen.

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We have differences because we're fallible. We have differences of opinion. But you know what's amazing? Is that in the entire history of the

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Christian church, one of those consistent doctrines, consistent beliefs that has endured since the beginning, where Christians have just been unified on in the history of Christianity, is on this issue.

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That what takes place in abortion is murder. And so I'll give you some examples.

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Basil of Caesarea. She who has deliberately destroyed a fetus must bear the penalty for murder.

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Moreover, those who aid her, who give her abortifacients for the destruction of a child conceived in the womb, are murderers themselves, along with those receiving the poisons.

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You know what's amazing? Can you just put a pin in this and think about this for a second? That was Basil of Caesarea.

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And I want to make a note that that's before there were ultrasounds. That's before there were fetal heart monitors that you could listen in your womb.

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That was before all the excuses that the establishment gives to the woman as to that she just doesn't know.

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She doesn't know. She doesn't have enough information. This is early on in the history of the Christian church. They didn't have any of that stuff.

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And what was the message from Scripture? You're a mother. That's your baby. This is murder. It's unjustified taking of human life.

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And she's guilty. And anybody else involved is guilty. That is the message of the Christian church.

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And it has been so. She knows what she's doing. Otherwise she wouldn't be walking into an abortion facility.

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She knows. And we are lying to her when we try to soften her conscience.

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How did you and I come to Jesus? How? Reflect for a moment on when you turned to Christ.

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How? Wasn't it because you felt the weight of your sin? Did you see the cross and understood what it was for?

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Did you feel your guilt and your shame before God? And did you turn because of God's grace to Jesus to cling to Him for forgiveness and salvation?

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That's how we come to Jesus. These women don't come to Jesus and experience peace and forgiveness if we lie to them about their guilt.

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We need to tell the truth. The Didache says this. You know this.

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Pastor James preached on this. He talked through this. The Didache is one of the earliest writings we have in the history of the

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Christian church. It actually is amazing. Read it. Go look it up later. Go read the Didache. It's amazing.

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In the Didache, very on in the history of the Christian church, it says this. There are two ways, the way of life and the way of death.

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And the difference between these two is great. Therefore, do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.

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The Christian church has been fighting against this enemy since the very beginning, brothers and sisters. And we've had a consistent message about it.

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In the Epistle of Barnabas, it says you shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not slay a child by abortion.

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You shall not kill that which has already been generated. Slay a child. Athenagoras says,

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We say that women who induce abortions are murderers and will have to give an account of it to God.

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The fetus in the womb is a living being and therefore the object of God's care. Clement of Alexandria says,

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Our whole life can proceed according to God's perfect plan only if we gain dominion over our desires, practicing continence from the beginning instead of destroying those through perverse and pernicious arts human offspring who are given birth by divine providence.

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Those who use abortifacient medicine to hide their fornication cause not only the outright murder of the fetus, but of the whole human race as well.

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Tertullian says, Our faith declares life out of death. Therefore, murder is forbidden once and for all.

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We may not destroy even the fetus in the womb. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man -killing.

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Thus, it does not matter whether you take away a life that is born or destroy one that is coming to the birth.

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In both instances, destruction is murder. We could go on for days.

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But this is one of the consistent doctrines in the history of the Christian faith.

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Abortion is murder. Everybody involved is guilty.

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And therefore, everybody involved needs the cross. Everybody involved needs forgiveness and grace.

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And so the industry that has been running this for 50 years does not believe that.

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And they are fighting against justice for the fatherless because they have a heretical belief, a heretical doctrine that says that woman does not need forgiveness in Jesus for that.

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God help us to overcome this. Why are we obligated to oppose this?

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There were three things I told you about neutrality. They fight with neutrality without Christ, without the Word of God, without a commitment to His authority.

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Partiality. Bills of partiality and unequal weights and measures. And they acquit the guilty.

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They say she's not guilty. Why are we obligated to oppose them? Number one, on their neutrality. Jesus says in John 14 6,

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I am the way and the what? Truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.

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Jesus came into the world as the incarnate one. God incarnate. He walks among us.

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He proclaimed His excellencies, His glory and His authority the entire duration and especially when

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He was raised from the dead and ascended when He said all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.

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Jesus claims to be one with all authority. The one with all authority. And He said He's the only way to life.

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He's the only way to salvation. He's the only way to forgiveness. Brothers and sisters, we either believe that or we don't.

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We either believe that Jesus is who He claimed to be or we don't. Let's stop pretending. Let's stop with the hypocrisy.

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Let's stop the Christian games. If we don't believe that Christ has authority out there, then

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He doesn't have authority because He claimed that He did over everything, over all the kings of the earth, over all the earth, over you, over me, every stranger that you and I meet,

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Jesus says He has authority over them. He's the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the

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Father but by Me. Scripture teaches in Proverbs 1 -7 that the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of knowledge. You want these legislators to know something? You want our culture to know something?

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You want them to know truth? Scripture says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. It's not the middle.

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It's not the conclusion. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. If you take out the message of God's authority,

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His holiness, and His truth, there's nothing to bring to bear on the rebel. Nothing.

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If we want that rebel to know something about God, it has to first start with a proclamation of who they are in God's world.

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The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Colossians 2 -3 says that in Christ, in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

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How? How are we going to convince the world to love these children and to love justice and mercy if we rob them of the

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One who within Him are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? You want them to know? You want them to understand?

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Don't remove the proclamation of who He is and His Word. Scripture teaches in Romans 10 v.

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17, you know this one. Are you ready? Faith comes by hearing and a couple of you knew it.

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Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. How? Please tell me.

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How? Please describe it. Explain it. Argue your case. How are you going to bring love for God and love for these children into the public square or at the legislator without the

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Word of God? God says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the

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Word of God. If you want them to have their minds changed and hearts changed, it's got to start with the

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Word of God. That's across the board. That's for addiction. That's for adultery.

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That's for lying. That's in every area of life. Every sin and injustice.

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If you want to see transformation, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That's how it happens.

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Romans 1 .16 says that it is the Gospel that is the power of God for salvation.

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You want revival? A lot of talk about revival. Incessant talk about revival right now online.

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You want genuine revival? I don't know a thing going on in Asbury. I don't know anything. I don't know any details.

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I've seen the singing. I've seen the days -long singing. That's all I know. But I do know this. There is no revival apart from repentance and faith.

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There is no genuine revival apart from the Gospel, the message of the Gospel, which brings the weight of our sin onto us so we turn from it to Jesus.

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You can't see the world transformed apart from the message of Jesus. The Gospel is the power of God for salvation.

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You want to end this injustice? Stop taking the Gospel out of it. Stop taking the call of repentance out of it.

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So I have a lot to say that would grieve you about what we see across the country and what we see in these hearings.

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On Friday, I sat and watched legislators who are pro -death chewing on Doritos while people were coming up and just pleading for mercy.

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Can you just give them pain medicine? Look, here's the data. Here's the data. Doctors and scientists were coming up and saying, actually, we know from the data that these children in the womb not only feel pain, but they feel pain far more than we do because they're not fully developed yet.

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So they actually feel it worse than you would feel it because it's not fully formed and connected, so they're feeling an exaggerated form of the pain.

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And there's doctors and there's scientists and they're arguing from the science and the data, and no one's remembering that they've already decided these children don't deserve mercy.

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They're eating chips up there. Laughing between themselves. Talking back and forth.

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Laughing. And so these pro -life people are coming up and they're saying, can you just show them mercy?

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They're going to feel pain. Can you just make them more comfortable while this is happening to them? Before you dismember them, can you please help it to where they don't feel it as bad?

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It's very disheartening. And then enter our bill. Over 100 people signed up because of your witness as a church, because of your commitments and the work that we've done to lay down.

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They show up from Colorado, people coming up, and you know what it was? It was testimony after testimony after testimony after testimony about Christ calling them to repentance, demanding that they stop the murder.

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There's a difference between how the establishment has fought against this and how the

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Christian church is called to do it. There is a difference, brothers and sisters. There is.

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Can I tell you one more thing? So they put her bill above ours in the hearing.

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So we had to sit through the bill where everybody's begging for mercy for these children. Can you just make them comfortable?

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And I said to her in the hallway, I understand. Why? I understand that you just want mercy for these children.

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When I oppose your bill, I'm not going to take down your dignity because I know where it's coming from, but it's unjust.

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I said, would you fight other evils like this? She said, what do you mean?

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I said, if it was during the time of slavery, would you suggest a bill that says you can beat my black brother, but you have to give him a pint of whiskey before you do it?

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She said, no. And I said, how about sex trafficking? Would you suggest a bill that says, hey, sex trafficking is happening, so let's put forth some legislation that says you can do the sex trafficking, but you've got to use lube?

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At least make her comfortable. She said, I would never do that. I said, how have we been so convinced over those issues, but the plight of the preborn, we think that we have to compromise and take these stands.

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So when her bill was being heard, the legislators were all there. They're all sitting. They're listening.

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They love to be in judgment over these children. They've already decided they don't deserve any mercy, but they love to be in the seat of judgment.

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They love it. And we had people there testifying to the legislators in opposition to that bill.

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Christians saying, I oppose this bill because it is unjust. You need to quit murdering children in Colorado.

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Not give them pain medicine. And Christians were testifying, but they loved sitting on that panel. When our bill was heard, the legislators who were there for the hearing literally were getting up and walking out and leaving.

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They didn't even sit there for the hearing. Limited people. And you know what? I know that that is evil.

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That should grieve us, but at the same time, I fully understand it. Do you know why I understand it?

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They could not sit there under the hearing of the Gospel and the proclamation of that evil and they couldn't bear it, so they had to leave.

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They couldn't sit still to hear God's people preaching Christ and repentance to them because they knew in their conscience what they were actually doing.

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There's a difference. Why are we opposed? Why are we obligated to oppose them?

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Not just their neutrality, but their partiality. Go to Deuteronomy 24. Deuteronomy 24, verse 17.

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We did last week, right? The text says, You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless or take a widow's garment and pledge.

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And what we already read today was Deuteronomy 27, verse 19. Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.

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And all the people shall say, Amen. In Psalm 82, you had it read to you today by one of our deacons,

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Gabe. In Psalm 82, God says, in the worship book of the church,

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Psalm 82, verse 3, starting in verse 2 actually, How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

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Give justice to the weak and the fatherless. Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

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Rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. That's a song we're supposed to be singing regularly.

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I read to you Isaiah 123, but Proverbs 20, verse 23,

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God says, Unequal weights and measures are an abomination to God. I've already said to you that you can't defeat evil by compromising with it.

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Why are we opposed to this partiality and compromise? Here it is, brothers and sisters. You want the summary? This is it.

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We just did a sermon, a message on Proverbs about the seven things that God hates.

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God abominates. God loathes partiality. God loathes unequal weights and measures.

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So why must we? Why are we obligated as God's people to oppose this kind of partiality and injustice?

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Why? Why? And the answer is because God hates it. The simplest way that I have tried to communicate it is simply this.

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If you put a bill of partiality before God on the last day that says you can kill these kids but not these kids, use these tools but not these tools, and you put another bill that's a

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Christian bill that says it's the image of God and it deserves equal protection throughout its entire natural life, which bill does

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God hate? On the last day, when these bills are put before God, which bill does

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God hate? Which one is detestable to Him? That's why as Christians, as the church, we are obligated to fight against this with the testimony of Jesus Christ and the law word of God.

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God abominates these iniquitous decrees, these bills of injustice.

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God hates these bills. And the last thing, I've already said it. Why are we obligated to oppose the neutrality?

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Why are we obligated to oppose the partiality? Why are we obligated to oppose when they acquit the guilty?

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In their acquitting the guilty, they are robbing women of the gospel. Because they're saying to women, you're not guilty, you don't need forgiveness.

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You don't need Christ. You didn't do anything wrong. That robs my sister of the gospel and her hope in the gospel.

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That robs all these women who have done this of the gospel. I want them to know

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Jesus and the power of His salvation. And you have an industry that pretends to be on the side of the

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Christian church that tells her she has nothing to repent of. No forgiveness necessary.

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And brothers and sisters, robbing her of the gospel is robbing her of her only hope of salvation.

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We must oppose it. But then the second point in their acquitting of the guilty,

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God says those who acquit the guilty and those who condemn the righteous are equally alike, both alike, an abomination to God.

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We all know what it means to have an innocent man condemned in the court. The injustice that you feel.

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The weight of that. That's abominable. It's detestable. God says it is also equally detestable to acquit the guilty.

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To say to somebody who is guilty, you're not guilty. And the establishment says, you're not guilty.

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And what's it lead to? The death of our neighbors. The death of these children.

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My final words, brothers and sisters, on this. I'll just talk to you very personally.

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I'm tired of talking about this. I am. I know this is weighty and I know at times we're tired of hearing about it.

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I hate how this consumes our thinking all the time. I hate how it consumes time with my family.

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I hate this ministry. I want it to be over. I want justice to be established.

01:00:03

And I confess completely, completely, to times of apathy.

01:00:11

To times where I don't think about this the way that it really is. And it's a hard balance.

01:00:18

I'm just being transparent. It's a hard balance because there are times where I feel the weight of all of these children on me.

01:00:30

The weight of it is hard to bear. And there's times where I try to make sure

01:00:38

I can at least be rational and not irrational because I feel the weight of every day them dying and we have to stop it.

01:00:51

And I confess that I've tried to find ways to not be so consumed with it that I can't enjoy my time with you or enjoy my time with my family.

01:01:02

I've tried to find ways to not be so consumed with it. And it's hard to balance that,

01:01:09

I confess. There are times, I feel it, where you just want to quit.

01:01:18

I confess that when we send out 700 messages,

01:01:25

I confess that when you have our church body sacrificing your time and your talents, time with family and your money to call every pastor in Arizona to have them come to a meeting because we have a bill that would abolish it, and like 25 show up.

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I confess I rejoice that we have 25 because we're just one church and look what God has done.

01:01:49

I rejoice over the smallness because there's still faithful, solid men and women.

01:01:55

But I confess that it weighs on you. Where's the church? I honestly believe this.

01:02:02

You're getting my whole heart right now. I at times believe that the

01:02:09

Christian church doesn't really want largely to end abortion. There are times where I feel that.

01:02:16

That if we really wanted to end it, we would end it. But the problem is a problem of we don't really care enough to end it.

01:02:26

And so there are times where we go into a state, and my thinking 10 years ago is once we get that bill of abolition, once we get that bill of justice, the entire

01:02:35

Christian church is going to pour in and put this thing to death. And then we show up to a capital in Texas to a handful of maybe what,

01:02:45

Dennis? Barely anybody shows up for this bill. We're looking for the church saying, where's the church?

01:02:53

This is the bill we've been begging God for. It's going to establish justice in the state and I can't find anybody to stand next to us.

01:02:59

Now, don't get me wrong. God blesses us constantly showing us the fruit of this.

01:03:05

Like in Denver, you have just so many testimonies of believers and pastors there who are speaking against this and standing against it.

01:03:12

But I confess, I confess, there are times where you just want to say, Lord, handle this with somebody else.

01:03:21

But we have a duty before God to obey His word, to sacrifice for them.

01:03:32

We can't pretend to be faithful practicing Christians and ignore the murder of these children in the womb.

01:03:41

James says, James 1 .27, you know it. You don't even have to go there. Pure and undefiled religion is this.

01:03:55

And what is it? To care for orphans and widows in their tribulation.

01:04:08

The orphan is the one without a guardian. The one without a guardian. The one without someone to care for them.

01:04:17

So you want to be a truly practicing Christian? You want to show me how spiritual you are? You want to show me how much you truly love

01:04:24

Jesus? Well, pure and undefiled religion, according to James, the Lord's brother, is to care for the orphans, the fatherless.

01:04:31

Care for them. That's what Scripture commands of us. And we do this to seek

01:04:38

His pleasure and glory, not ours. And He is pleased in this when

01:04:44

His word is proclaimed, and His gospel is proclaimed. So how do I continue to stand as hard as this is?

01:04:50

This is the word of the living God. This is what He says. And I have to constantly rejoice.

01:04:58

I know that God knows that I'm just a man, a fallible man, and at times not as strong as I ought to be.

01:05:07

And so I know that God knew how hard this battle was going to be and how much perseverance it would take.

01:05:14

And so three years ago, God put a little fixture in my home to remind me and my wife constantly.

01:05:30

Because there's going to be times you want to quit and you want to give up. And so God put a fixture in my home so that every day when

01:05:42

I see His beautiful face and every moment that my family's home is filled with His laughter, we would remember it is for over 62 million just like Him.

01:06:06

And every single day, brothers and sisters, there are fatherless children and orphans just like my son who are having their lives taken from them because of merciless, wicked people.

01:06:24

And so brothers and sisters, I want to encourage you to continue to stand.

01:06:31

Stand firm. Speak boldly. Persevere and pray.

01:06:39

Brothers and sisters, pray without ceasing. God is blessing this now in our time through the faithful proclamation of His Word.

01:06:50

Let's not retreat, but let's push forward with more boldness and love and humility and compassion and perseverance than we ever had before because the victory is right ahead of us, but it takes all of us and our mouths and our hands and feet to accomplish it.

01:07:09

Will you continue to fight with me? Will you continue to stand with us?

01:07:16

Let's lay our lives down for the lost. You know the Word. From the Lord is greater love. Has no man than this.

01:07:23

Let a man lay down his life for his friends. So lay your lives down with me. Let's pray. Father, bless, please, bless the work of Your church, not just us, but all the faithful churches and believers who are fighting this fight.

01:07:41

God, we want You to have victory for Your glory. Please bless.

01:07:56

We do ask for genuine revival in our nation. And we know that it has to be by Your Spirit and Word.

01:08:09

And so that's what we ask to fall upon our nation. God, raise the dead.

01:08:18

Open the eyes of the blind. Give hearing to the deaf. And Lord, be glorified in establishing justice for these fatherless children.