WWUTT 1515 A Babe Has Been Born

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Well, Becky had a baby recently, and I'm going to share that news with you, as well as look at what the scripture says about the struggles and the toils we go through in this life holding fast to Christ, who is our hope, when we understand the text.

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You're listening to When We Understand the Text, an online Bible ministry so that we may know all the riches freely given to us by God.

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For questions and comments, send us an email to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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Here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky, who is not in studio with me today, but I hope you understand why.

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We had a baby on Wednesday. Ezekiel Robert Hughes was born on September the 1st, 420 in the afternoon.

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He was 8 pounds, exactly, 20 inches, exactly, and cute as can be.

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Mommy and baby are doing well. We had asked for your prayers a week ago. I had mentioned to you that the baby was transverse, meaning that he was kind of sideways.

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Specifically, his head was in her hip. He was not lined up with the birth canal the way that he was supposed to be.

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And if she had gone into labor with the baby in that position, it would have been very serious for the baby and for her.

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So we were asking for your prayers. Our church had been praying for us that this baby's head would be down.

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And so we got to the hospital on Wednesday morning. We knew one way or the other we were going to be having a baby because the situation was so serious.

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Either she would be put on Pitocin and she would have a natural birth or she would, if the baby was still transverse, if his head wasn't down, then she was going to have to have a

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C -section. But the doctor checked her first thing, the head was down. We were praising God there in the delivery room, an answer to prayer, and then the delivery went great after that.

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It was her most difficult delivery, though. Becky tends to go into labor and deliver very quickly.

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This is another reason why we needed to be induced instead of waiting until the due date.

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We were a week early, but it was going to be safer for her and for the baby to go ahead and induce a week early.

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So because she has babies so fast, this was her most difficult labor. Still pretty quick,

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I think, on average. Most women probably labor longer than Becky does. It was still a very hard labor for her, and she's very worn out.

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So that's why she's not on the program with me here. Your prayers for a quick physical recovery for her would be wonderful.

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But again, the baby is doing great. And some have asked me about that name. Ezekiel doesn't run in the family.

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My son, Zachary, who's 10 years old, he really wanted his baby brother to have a

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Z name like his. Well, we couldn't make a Z name work, not one that we really liked with a middle name and with the last name.

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So we came back to Ezekiel. This was the name we were going to give to our daughter, Mariah, who's four years old now.

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If she had been a boy, she would have been Ezekiel. So we held on to that name. And as a nickname, we're calling him

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Zeke. And Zachary was thrilled with that. He loved it because his nickname is Zege. So we call him

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Zege. And this baby is Zeke. And we've got our two baby Z's, our two boys, our

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Z names, Robert, the middle name. That's my dad's first name. And I would not be a

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Christian today if not for my dad. He raised me up in the training and the instruction of the

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Lord. My dad is my hero. And so my youngest son, who we believe will be our last child unless God gives us another one, he has my dad's name as his middle name and couldn't be more proud.

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Psalm 127. I had shared this online after my son was born. Unless Yahweh builds the house, they labor in vain who build it.

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Unless Yahweh watches the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early, that you sit out late.

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Oh, you who eat the bread of painful labors. For in this manner, he gives sleep to his beloved.

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Behold, children are an inheritance of Yahweh. The fruit of the womb is a reward.

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Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. How blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them.

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They will not be ashamed when they speak with enemies in the gate. Becky and I thought our baby days were behind us.

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We thought four kids was what we were going to have and we weren't going to have any more. But God had other plans and it was when we got here to Texas that Becky got pregnant and so we have a

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Texas baby. Couldn't be happier. We were all thrilled and the kids just elated.

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All four children love having this little baby brother. It was a tough labor for Becky, but while we were there in the delivery room after Becky had given birth, we're celebrating this newborn that we had with us,

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I read to the nurse, to Becky and everyone present, baby

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Zeke as well. John 16, I'm going to begin reading in verse 16.

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Jesus said to his disciples, this was in the upper room before they went out to the garden of Gethsemane and Jesus was arrested and taken and crucified.

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This is that last conversation, that last teaching he gave to his disciples before his death.

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He said to them a little while and you will no longer see me. And again, a little while and you will see me.

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Some of his disciples then said to one another, what is this? He is telling us a little while and you will not see me.

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And again, a little while and you will see me and because I go to the father. So they were saying, what is this that he says a little while we do not know what he is talking about.

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Jesus knew that they were wishing to question him and he said to them, are you deliberating together about this, that I said a little while and you will not see me and again, a little while and you will see me truly, truly,

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I say to you that you will cry and lament, but the world will rejoice.

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You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. Whenever a woman is in labor, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a child has been born into the world.

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Therefore, you too have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice and no one will take your joy away from you.

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And so as a woman goes through labor pains, this is even a reminder for us of the suffering that we endure now in this life until the day of Christ.

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But on that day, when we join him forever in glory, there will be no more suffering. We suffer now.

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But as Paul said in Romans chapter eight, verse 18, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

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For the anxious longing of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.

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For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

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And not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, eagerly waiting for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

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For in hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he already sees.

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But if we hope for what we do not see with perseverance, we eagerly wait for it.

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And in the same way, the spirit also helps our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we as we should, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

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And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

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And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

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Let me break right there to say even the suffering we go through, these things work together for good for those who are called by God according to his purpose, because those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son so that he would become the firstborn among many brothers.

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And those whom he predestined, he also called those whom he called. He also justified and those whom he justified.

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He also glorified. So we suffer, we labor, we toil, we go through struggles and hardships now, but it doesn't even compare with the glory that awaits us in Christ if we endure to the end.

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Right now, we we struggle because we live in a world that is corrupt and has been subject to corruption, subjected to futility, as Paul said there in Romans chapter eight.

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And this has happened because of our sin, because of the sin of mankind in rebellion against God.

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Our sin is so serious. God is so holy and our sin is so bad.

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That our sin against God, Adam and Eve sin in the Garden of Eden caused all of creation to be sent into upheaval.

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I even made a comment when Becky was in the delivery room about the pain of of childbearing.

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And I said to her, well, Becky, if you had not eaten that fruit, then we wouldn't be in this position.

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It's a woman's fault. You ate the fruit. God said, don't eat of the tree. You ate it. And Becky replied to me, well, if you hadn't been so distracted looking off at other things and you had been protecting me like you were supposed to, then we wouldn't be in this position.

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Like we were taking on the role of Adam and Eve having a conversation after they had been kicked out of the Garden of Eden. I'm sure things were maybe a little more tense between Adam and Eve.

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We were just jesting. But but anyway, yeah. So as it says there in the

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Genesis three account, Adam was right there with Eve when she listened to the voice of the serpent and took the fruit of the tree that they were told not to eat from and ate because of this sin, because they disobeyed

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God. Creation was cursed and sent into upheaval. That's how serious it is that we who have been made in the image of God have sinned against God, taken those things that God has given to us, made in his image, meant to use for his glory, the mind that we have, the body that we have, the breath that was breathed into us.

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We were to give glory unto God with these wonderful gifts. But instead, we use them to glorify ourselves.

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We rebelled against God. We glorified ourselves. What we deserve for that is death.

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But God has been merciful to us. He has been patient and kind toward us.

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He has been gracious to us. And he sent his son, Jesus, born in the likeness of men, born in the likeness of sinful flesh to die on a cross for our sins.

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The death we were supposed to die, Christ did that on the cross, taking the wrath of God upon himself, drinking it down to the dregs, as it says in the

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Psalms. And so all who believe in Christ, the wrath of God has been appeased. He is our propitiation.

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He has atoned for our sins. And we have everlasting life with God through faith in our

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Lord Jesus Christ. Because of God's grace to us. If we believe on his name, faith is the instrument that God has chosen to transmit the blessings of his grace to us.

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And when we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we repent of our sin and we are saved.

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As it says in Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, it is by grace you have been saved through faith.

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And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

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The wonderful grace of God that is upon us, we who were sinful and worthy of death and destruction, but God was merciful.

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God has chosen for himself out of this sinful and fallen world, a people for his own possession, that we might love him and worship him and be zealous for his good works.

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And while we struggle and labor now in this sinful and fallen world in which we live, we are being made holy.

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We are being sanctified. As we read there in Romans chapter 8, God working all things together for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose and the good that he is working out in us is to be conformed to the image of his son and those whom he predestined he will glorify.

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As Paul said in Philippians 1, 6, I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ.

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And on that day, when we join with him in glory, we will escape the corruption that is in the world, the pain and the struggle and the hardship that we endured here and yet continued to give glory to his name.

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Though we suffered, though we were persecuted, though we were ridiculed, though we experienced torment in our flesh, though we were reminded daily of the fallenness and corruption of this world as our bodies began to betray us and fall apart.

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And yet we endured through these things clinging steadfastly to Christ.

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The sufferings of this present time don't even compare to the glory that awaits us in him who holds us steadfast to the end.

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And so we read in Revelation chapter 21 about this kingdom that we will come into that will be perfect in which there will be no more death, no more sickness, no more suffering, no more labor pains, no more sadness or sorrow.

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Tears will be wiped from our eyes. Revelation 21, beginning in verse one.

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Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth passed away and there is no longer any sea.

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And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.

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That's the church. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the tabernacle of God is among men and he will dwell among them and they shall be his people and God himself will be among them and he will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will no longer be any death.

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There will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things passed away.

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Let me keep going. I'll go through verse eight. And he who sits on the throne said, behold,

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I am making all things new. And he said, right, for these words are faithful and true.

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Then he said to me, they are done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.

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I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.

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He who overcomes will inherit these things and I will be his

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God and he will be my son. But the cowardly and the unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

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Because of our rebellion against God, God is cursed creation and a day is coming in which he will judge all things with fire.

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As Peter talks about in second Peter chapter three, the wrath of God will be poured out on creation and all of mankind who did wickedly, who did not believe in the

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Lord Jesus Christ, but continue to exalt themselves, glorifying themselves instead of bowing the knee to God.

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We would have, we would have continued on that same trajectory if it were not for the grace of God, if it were not for God sending his son to die on the cross for our sins and all who believe in him will not perish under the wrath and judgment of God, but we will have everlasting life, eternal life in this wonderful, perfect kingdom in which

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Christ will wipe away every tear from our eyes. And as it says in Philippians three, he will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject all things to himself.

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May our hope and our desire be for that great day. I talked about that with you a little bit this past week on the podcast.

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I've been talking about that with my Sunday school class on Sunday morning. You can hear those Sunday school lessons on Sunday.

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They're recorded and I'll take those lessons and put them on the program. I'm also preaching this weekend as well.

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And I'll be preaching on second Peter two, which you've probably heard some of those lessons on, on Sunday.

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This is a, this is my lesson for today though. I thought I would make an announcement about the birth of our son and thank you for praying for us because of your prayers,

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God listened and he gave us a good birth and a wonderful, healthy baby boy.

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We could not be happier. We're so grateful to God for the goodness that he gives us all the time.

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And when we as a family pray, we're always thanking God for his goodness to us. When my wife and I pray together, we thank

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God for bringing us together, for bringing us out of the sins that we were guilty of before we got married and then forgiving us of our sins that we've committed, even when we've been married and has given us a wonderful marriage that has been built on a foundation of Christ Jesus by some wonderful people who loved us when we were going through this, before we got married, like our engagement process, there were people looking out for us and making sure that we started off on the right way.

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And we have a marriage that is on Christ Jesus, building a family that is on Christ Jesus. When Becky and I pray, we thank

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God for his grace to us and the wonderful blessings that he's poured out to us in the children that we have.

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And what a great blessing to to have a son born on the day that the heartbeat bill went into effect in the state of Texas.

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Now, I know this is not a perfect bill. It means that children after six weeks or six to eight weeks in there when a heartbeat can be detected after that, it is illegal to put a child to death, to abort a baby in the womb.

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Now, this bill means that children up to six weeks can still be aborted. So there's still going to be babies that die.

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But greater than 80 percent of abortions in the state of Texas were happening after that six week mark. So I believe that this bill will save lives.

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It's not a perfect bill. We still need the abolition of abortion completely, not just in the state of Texas, but in the

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United States as well. Maybe this bill will push the discussion in that direction and we can see that happen.

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Roe v. Wade overturned and the murder of unborn children will come to an end.

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It's astounding to think that, you know, when we came to the hospital that morning to check my son and see if his head was lined up with the birth canal the way that it was supposed to be.

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And if it wasn't lined up, then we were you know, Becky was going to have to have a C section in order to deliver him.

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When we came to the hospital that morning, according to the abortion rights, feminist, murderous agenda that's going on in the

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United States of America, according to their perspective, according to their dark, twisted morality, if Becky had been walking into an abortion clinic on Wednesday morning, they'd have cheered for her.

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This child who was full term, who was ready to come into the world that we were working on saving abortionists would have been chomping at the bit for the opportunity to rip him apart.

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So I was I was elated, thrilled, not just at the birth of my son, but that it happened on that significant a day.

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With all that discussion about abortion that was going on that day on September the first, we were rejoicing in a hospital room that my son was born alive and safe and that he was in our arms, loved as we loved him from the day that we heard that Becky was pregnant with our fifth.

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God is so good, you know, all of us deserve death. The wages of sin is death, as it says in Roman 623.

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But that verse goes on to say the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

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We're all guilty of sin and we all have blood on our hands. But it is the precious blood of Jesus Christ that was spilled for us that we might have the forgiveness of sins and everlasting life with God.

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If you are guilty of any of these wicked things in rebellion against God, whether it's something as serious as abortion or it's just following after the passions of your flesh instead of doing what

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God has said, according to his word, there is forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Repent, turn to Jesus and be saved for the wrath of God is coming against this twisted and crooked generation.

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Let's finish with prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the goodness that you have shown to us. We have been born again by faith in our

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Lord Jesus Christ so that we would be born unto salvation instead of coming into destruction, as all who continue in lawlessness will come into if they do not repent.

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Keep us steadfast in these days. Remind us of our hope that we have in Christ Jesus. And if there is anybody listening who is struggling in their faith because of conflict that they see happening in another part of the world or conflict they see in their own neighborhood, maybe even in their own home because of sickness and disease, and they've lost loved ones to covid or or to cancer or anything else, if there's somebody who's struggling just in and looking for meaning and purpose in all that's happening in the world, in the day today, in the mundane or in the serious or even significance to happiness.

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May they be reminded of Christ. May their faith become strong by the promises that we read in your word.

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For as it says in Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

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Hold us steadfast in your love. May we remember Jesus and his wonderful sacrifice and that he is sitting at the right hand of the throne of God interceding on our behalf.

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May we know that he is coming back to judge the living and the dead, and we long for that day when we will be delivered from this troubled world into a perfect kingdom.

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We read at the end of the book of Jude, now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy.

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To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, might and authority before all time and now and forever.