UnAborted

Creation Fellowship

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Okay, so we are now recording and That same problem.

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I had earlier on Facebook is just not it's just not going. I don't know why

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It's doing that and you're signed in the way that you're yeah Mm -hmm

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Seth I Heard you speaking at um Jack Hibbs Church a few weeks ago

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Yeah, that was fun I appreciated your passion, thanks. Yeah, I'm actually gonna be back there

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Sunday morning, so I'm in Minutes, do you know where Menifee, California is?

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Yeah. Yeah, that's where I live. Awesome. That's my mom

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We're actually in the same room in the same home but two different rooms I Do well, let me know when you're ready.

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All right, you know, just just go ahead I'll just try to get this as best I can I it's it for some reason

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I don't know if it's the browser or what but it had been working fine until last week and Just yeah, just go ahead

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Terry we're recording Okay, all right, well then let's get started so, um I am

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Terry camera cell and we are the creation fellowship Santee normally meeting at the

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Creation and Earth History Museum in Santee, California and we're pleased to be able to do this online series since we haven't been able to meet in person since all of the shutdowns at the beginning of this year and Our common thread is that we believe that God is the creator of the universe and everything and it belongs to him

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So we're excited when we get to have Speakers that are a little bit off topic from our from our

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Genesis account, but Still related and that's what

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Seth Gruber is here for us tonight Because we know that God is the creator creates all human beings and he knows each of each of us

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Even when we're in the womb So we're happy to have Seth Gruber Seth is a professional public speaker focused on equipping

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Christians and pro -life Advocates to make a gracious winsome and persuasive case of their pro -life beliefs in the public square

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Seth's passion is to help equip Christians to be able to love their pre -born neighbor and He has a podcast that you can find on his website

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Seth Gruber calm his podcast is unaborted So with that, we're happy to have him here with us tonight

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Seth. Go ahead Awesome. Well, thank you guys for tuning in and it's good to be with like -minded people

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Especially during a time where people have not been able to gather together as often or as frequently

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So thanks for having me on I'm gonna be giving one of my lectures tonight and called defending life how

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Christians can be a voice for the unborn and it's sort of my Evergreen lecture that I think just stands the test of time

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And so I thought it would be the most applicable for our purposes tonight just to lay what I kind of call the philosophical

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Groundwork if you will tilling the philosophical toil soil rather of this

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Issue so that you're positioned to water that soil well so that you can be equipped to Defend life engage the culture and be a voice for the unborn

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I went to a Christian College on to Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California And I was the founder of the first and only pro -life club on campus at Westmont College that's a large experience in and of itself as my college doesn't take a position on the issue of abortion and They actually hire pro -abortion faculty

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So you just have to sign a statement of faith But you don't have to believe it's wrong to tear limbs off of pre -born image bears in the womb in order to teach at Westmont College I say all that to set up this comment and quote that I want to read to you from my time at Westmont College You see

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I became somewhat notorious at Westmont and I was not well liked by many because of my outspoken voice on the issue of abortion and my critiques of the college's

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Cowardice in claiming to be a Christian College whose motto is Christ preeminent in all things

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Except apparently the prenatal Christ and all babies created in the image of the prenatal

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Christ who apparently Don't deserve to have Christians raise their voice to protect them And so the faculty advisor for my pro -life club one day sent me a email correspondence in a thread that he was in where professors at Westmont were sharing their opinions on abortion and Their opinions on how

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Christian colleges like Westmont ought to interact with the issue of abortion and Here's what one professor had to say

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About how he views the role of the Christian in regards to literally genocide the genocide of 1 million baby image bears

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Every year he said the moral particularities of abortion are so fine textured and open textured

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That Manichean distinctions about being pro or anti abortion strike me as ethically obtuse

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Our community and our students are best served when our chapel speakers invite us to tarry in the liminal spaces of complexity

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Now if you're thinking What what does that mean? I don't really know what that means either But I wish

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I could tell you that that was merely a parody of professorial thinking But I'm afraid it's much more of a window into the church's deep -seated confusion, excuse me on the issue of abortion and the statistics unfortunately bear this out a

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Pew Research Center study from 2016 on religious views on abortion Categorize those views according to morally wrong

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Morally acceptable or not a moral issue at all And of course if you don't think abortion is a moral issue at all

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That's basically the same as saying that it's morally acceptable and amongst white evangelical

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Protestants They found that 76 percent said abortion was morally wrong, right?

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So 24 percent being broken up into morally acceptable or not a moral issue at all Catholics reported 51 percent saying abortion was morally wrong amongst black

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Protestants 46 percent said abortion was morally wrong and Amongst white mainline Protestants 33 percent said abortion is morally wrong

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Those are sobering and staggering Statistics because of course as I went down the list less and less of those denominations and their adherence

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Were opposed to abortion and a larger percentage of them thought abortion was morally acceptable or not a moral issue at all

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So this is in our ranks too, right? This is within the walls of the church one of the reasons why the church has been so deafeningly silent on the abortion of the lambs is

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Because they're killing their own children within the walls of the church. So of course, they don't feel equipped to talk about it

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Of course They're afraid and guilty and shameful because they haven't even done anything to prevent the slaughter of baby image bears within their own church

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Much less out in the culture and unfortunately I can testify to the moral and spiritual

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Confusion amongst the church on abortion today when I went to Westmont College I encountered apathy unlike I had ever seen before amongst

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Christians and the current sitting president of Westmont College President Gail Beebe who was the president when

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I was there looked me in the face in a meeting and said we're not going to Take a position on the issue of abortion because there's so many issues, you know

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There's just so many so killing children is really just morally equivalent to women in ministry or speaking in tongues or Creationism versus evolution.

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It's just all the same. So we're just not going to take any a position on abortion, obviously unbelievable, right?

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And now I travel all across the country speaking in Protestant Catholic high schools secular and religious universities youth groups churches pregnancy care clinic banquets conferences and the moral fog that our

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Christian leaders and Pastors are living in is affecting the next generation as well

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And the other side understands that the battle and fight for the future of America is the fight for the current generation

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They understand that the fight for the future is the fight for the posterity of America and so if we can win their minds now will own them forever and shape in America that looks how we want it to look and The church is abdicated their responsibility to equip and raise up to disciple

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Right go out into all the nation creating disciples and then teach them to obey all that I have commanded you that's discipleship and we have not been discipling our young people to be salt and light in culture and this is why a universal theme within the pro -life movement is the deafening silence of the church on Abortion and so I think our role as Christians at the very least is what second

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Corinthians 10 5 tells us to do Which is to demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God and take captive every thought to make it

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Obedient to Christ, but unfortunately many of us don't know how to do this with the issue of abortion Do we we don't know how to take those thoughts and those ideas captive to Christ to objective truth to objective reality

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We feel passionate about our pro -life beliefs But when we're confronted with opposition that is counter to everything we believe about life and dignity and the image of God Then oftentimes we crumble and we don't know how to respond

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So my hope is that by the end of the evening, you will know how to do that with the issue of abortion So make no mistake

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There are two radically different views of humanity when we talk about the issue of abortion one view says yes

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We can kill unborn children because they're not one of us. They're so different They're obviously not a person the other view says no

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We can't kill the unborn because they are one of us. These are two radically different views of humanity and ready

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I'm gonna leave you with a crazy idea Someone is wrong Someone is wrong at the law of non -contradiction is very clear to opposing ideas cannot both be true at the same time and in the same

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Way, there is no moral neutrality. There is no gray area on the dismemberment of baby image bearers

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Someone is wrong and someone is right And so this evening we're gonna talk about why you're right and how you can articulate and defend that right belief that orthodox belief

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Which is the pro -life position. So how can we defend life? How can Christians be a voice for the unborn?

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Well before I tell you this is so important and significant because Christians and non -christians alike are deeply confused on Abortion you got

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Tim Keller two and a half weeks ago Sharing on Facebook that well, the Bible tells me that abortion is wrong and a great evil

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But it doesn't tell me the best way to decrease or end abortions Therefore the Christian has liberty of conscience liberty of conscience politically to vote

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However, he wants Keller says when it comes to voting determining political alliances and political involvement that Christian has liberty of conscience and then he says

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Christians cannot say to other Christians No Christian can vote for or every Christian must vote for unless you can find a biblical command to that effect end quote so according to pastor

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Tim Keller apparently Christians during the 1850s in America had the liberty of conscience to vote for the

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Democratic Party that party of slavery in the KKK Because you know what the Bible doesn't tell us the best way to decrease or end slavery

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I guess Christians have liberty of conscience to support Hitler and his regime in 1940 because brother you have freedom liberty of conscience to Vote however you want now, of course if Keller rejects these suggestions as permissible for the

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Christian Which I'm sure he does but he is pro -life then his own argument is rendered false Isn't it because abortion is wrong for the same reasons that slavery in the

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Holocaust were wrong They legally denied rights of personhood to image bearers of God while dehumanizing them in order to justify their mistreatment

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But that truth is lost now on woke pastors like Tim Keller who politically speaking are the

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Levite and the priest in the parable of the Good Samaritan who walk by on the other side of the road to avoid a bleeding victim in need of help because the way that we

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Say bleeding victims and use our voice to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves in America is our political voice and the

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Preborn child is the greatest bleeding victim in America So this this moral and spiritual fog is pervading the church and those

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Predisposed to protect life because we believe that every human being is created in the image of God.

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That's the first reason it's significant Secondly is because even those who feel passionate about the unborn and defending life rarely know how to engage

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With others in a meaningful way that will get them to reconsider their views And lastly, this is significant because over 63 million image bearers of God have been poisoned to death or ripped limb from limb in the womb since 1973 when abortion was legalized

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We're nearly 48 years since that bigoted decision that like Dred Scott said that not all humans are

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Persons and now we have the most pro -abortion political ticket in American history

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Joe Biden and Kamala Harris who have said that they will institute pre -clearance guidelines

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So those pesky pro -life states can't pass pro -life laws That Kamala Harris doesn't agree with and make no mistake if Joe Biden becomes president

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Suddenly, he will be declared mentally unfit by the DNC and Kamala Harris will become president mark my word

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They are going to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law. They're going to threaten or Promise to pack the

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Supreme Court with justices who have the jurisprudence of Ruth Bader Ginsburg until she recently passed

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They're going to make DC a state so that they can immediately get two more Democratic senators They're going to overturn the

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Hyde Amendment Which keeps federal dollars from funding abortion through Medicaid reimbursements and is responsible for saving over 2 million babies

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Oh, and they're going to increase the tax funding to Planned Parenthood by the millions. This is why this is all

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Significant a Kamala Harris Joe Biden political ticket will be to unborn children What Hitler was to choose and babies will be rounded up and targeted for slaughter unlike any other time in American history

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So this is why this is Significant Christians have to get off the bench and engage the culture and love our pre -born

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Neighbors who are our greatest bleeding victim Surrender is not an option for the

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Christian Apathy is not an option for the Christian sitting on the bench while cheering on other pro -lifers is not an option

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We have to get involved. So how can Christians be a voice for the unborn? Well, there's three simple things that we have to do.

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We have to engage We have to equip ourselves to engage and we have to sacrifice to engage

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So firstly we have to engage now this kind of seems like a given doesn't it? But because of the deafening silence of the

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American Church on the abortion of the lambs, it's not a given So I actually have to include it in my first to do in my first task in my first Marching order for you is we have to engage

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Unfortunately friends Christian silence in the face of genocide is nothing new that's actually the rule and not the exception for the church at least for the last 1 ,500 years and Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood this better than many he was fighting that type of Horrific silence in the face of a

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Holocaust in the 1930s and 1940s Wasn't he now Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a pastor martyr prophet and spy if you don't know

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He was the founder one of the co -founders of the Confessing Church in Germany Eric Metaxas has written a phenomenal biography on his life and I highly recommend that you read it

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But Dietrich Bonhoeffer was involved in an assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler Because he understood that that the mania of that man was so unhinged that the best way to love his

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Jewish brothers and sisters was indeed to take Hitler's life now that assassination attempt failed and He ended up being executed for that attempt and we have plenty of Bonhoeffer's writings in prison prior to his execution

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Powerful man, right and powerful story But Dietrich Bonhoeffer was part of a core group of Christians called the

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Confessing Church in Germany at the time now Why did they call themselves the Confessing Church? Well Bonhoeffer was creating a line of demarcation between himself and his friends and the rest of German society that called themselves

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Christian But whose Christianity was entirely silent on an actual

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Holocaust on an actual genocide This was echoed earlier by William Wilberforce that great

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British abolitionist, right? Who said that a private faith that does not act in the face of oppression is no faith at all

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Right Bonhoeffer would later say not to speak is to speak not to act is to act

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God will not hold us guiltless, right? There was no moral neutrality on the genocide of Jewish image bearers of God And so Bonhoeffer's close friend by the name of Eberhard Bethke Explained to us in some of his writing what

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Bonhoeffer was wrestling through during this time and the realizations that he was coming to regarding the

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Christian's role and involvement to promote righteousness restrain evil and Rescue bleeding victims from a genocide and here's what

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Eberhard Bethke had to say He said Bonhoeffer introduced us in 1935 to the problem of what we today call political

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Resistance the levels of confession confession and resistance could no longer be kept neatly apart

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The escalating persecution of the Jews generated an increasingly intolerable situation

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Especially for Bonhoeffer himself. We now realize that mere confession and he doesn't mean like Catholic confession

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He means like proclamation. We now realize that mere confession no matter how courageous Inescapably meant complicity with the murderers, even though there would always be new acts of refusing to be co -opted

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And even though we would preach Christ alone Sunday after Sunday During the whole time the Nazi state never considered it necessary to prohibit such preaching.

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Why should it? thus we were approaching the borderline between confession and resistance and if we did not cross this border our confession was going to be no better than Cooperation with the criminals and so it became clear where the problem lay for the confessing church and he said we were

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Resisting by way of confession, but we were not confessing by way of resistance

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Do you see he was saying that their opposition to genocide and state sanctioned slaughter was only evidencing itself through words and proclamation and Isn't that a perfect?

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Diagnosis of the state of the American Church today on the issue of abortion our

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Opposition to our genocide and Holocaust which kills 1 million babies a year at least is typically

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Proclamation I'm pro -life. We're a pro -life Church. We check the pro -life box

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We make a one -time donation to the local pregnancy Resource Center all even say that I'm voting pro -life and nothing else

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No form of resistance to state -sanctioned slaughter beyond your words

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Beyond your proclamation, but saying your pro -life is not enough saying that you were opposed to killing

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Jews was not enough We have to engage Engaging is the only proper response

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Christian response To evil of this magnitude, isn't it? Proverbs 31 8 tells us to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves

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That's obviously the unborn child But sometimes what Christians fail to forget or fail to realize rather and what we forget is

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That apart from Christ's sacrifice on the cross on our behalf We are also those who were unable to speak up for themselves

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Not one of us can stand before Christ on the day of judgment saying actually Lord Check this out.

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Perfect record baby open up the gates of glory Like the unborn child we are unable to speak up or vouch for ourselves

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But first John tells us that we have an advocate, right? If we do sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the father

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What's an advocate an advocate is someone who speaks up for someone else? so how can we not speak up for the unborn children in our midst who were unable to speak up for themselves if Christ spoke up for us when we were unable to speak up for ourselves.

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You see the Christian response to abortion Which must be the pro -life response is merely a response to the gospel itself

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We don't seek to save unborn children in order to gain God's love We do it because we already have

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God's love and that is the right response of the heart that has been changed by the gospel

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Is to love because he has loved us first So we have to engage and that's why we have to engage

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But our willingness to hit the field of battle and go to bat for unborn children to defend them

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Means little to nothing if we're not equipped to do so only a fool walks on to the battlefield without his weapons

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So we have to equip ourselves to engage Just as the soldier would be a fool to enter the field of battle

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Christians must be equipped to enter the battlefield of abortion First Peter 1 13 says therefore gird up the loins of your mind gird up the loins of your mind prepare

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind and strength Prepare your mind to engage on this intellectual battlefield

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That's been being waged for far too long and we have the best thinkers in the church

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Don't we because we have people who recognize objective reality and its source

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God Himself, we ought to be the ones on the front lines defending in the most persuasive manner the pro -life position and yet It's the church those predisposed to protect life that have been the most silent

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I love Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Bible and he unpacks first Peter 1 13 this

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Idea of girding up the loins of your mind to prepare and I'm just gonna read you what he says. It's a

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You know a caliber of language that we have lost in America in 2020 He says wherefore since you were so honored and distinguished as above gird up the loins of your mind you have a journey to go a race to run a

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Warfare to accomplish and a great work to do as the traveler the racer the warrior and the laborer

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Gather in and gird up their long and loose garments that they may be more ready prompt and expedious in their business so do you by your minds your inner man and Affection seated there gird them gather them in let them not hang loose and neglected about you restrain their

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Extravagances and let the loins or strength and vigor of your minds be exerted in your duty

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Disengage yourselves from all that would hinder you and go on resolutely in your obedience That's what

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Matthew Henry had to say about first Peter 1 13 gird up the loins of your mind equip yourselves to engage

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So, how do we do that on the issue of abortion? There's three things we do to equip ourselves to engage

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We clarify the nature of moral reasoning We clarify the only question that matters and we clarify the case for life

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Firstly, we clarify the nature of moral reasoning Listen pro -lifers are not claiming that abortion is wrong because we dislike it

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We're not claiming abortion is wrong because we have personal qualms against it and it gives us a queasy stomach

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Our claim is that abortion is wrong, regardless of how you feel about it, right? It's wrong

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It's wrong whether you like it or not because it violates rational moral principles that principle being it's always wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings without proper justification

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Now I'm going to tell you two different claims and you're going to immediately recognize the difference between these two claims

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The first claim is vanilla ice cream is always better than chocolate ice cream right now.

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Some of you are shaking your heads and you're disagreeing. It's all right, we can still be friends The second claim is that it's wrong to torture toddlers for fun

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Now you immediately recognize the difference between those two claims, didn't you? The first one, vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate ice cream, is a preference claim

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Now I may feel like it's an objective claim because if you think chocolate ice cream is better, you're wrong. I'm just kidding, right?

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That would be a silly thing to say because we recognize that you're not right or wrong, dependent on your preference for ice cream because it's a preference claim, right?

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And so it's true about the subject. This is what is called a subjective claim, right?

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I'm not making statements that are objectively true For all people at all times and in all places.

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That's merely a subject of a preference claim. But the second claim that it's wrong to torture toddlers for fun.

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That's an objective claim, right? Because if someone said, actually, Seth, don't impose your morality on me.

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Maybe it's okay for me to torture toddlers for fun. We would say, no, even if you think that you're wrong, right?

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That statement is true or false, regardless of how anyone feels about it. Now, why is this important to the abortion debate?

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Because the other side confuses the nature of moral reasoning all the time.

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When we say abortion is a moral wrong Do you know what the other side often hears?

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They hear, oh pro -lifers don't like abortion. They don't like it. Seen that bumper sticker?

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Don't like abortion? Don't have one. As if your As if your friendliness or hatred towards abortion has anything to do with the moral nature of abortion.

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Try this. Don't like spousal abuse? Don't beat your wife. That would be a silly thing to say, right?

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Don't like slavery? Don't buy slaves. That's ludicrous. Because those things are wrong and ought to be illegal, regardless of how anyone feels about them.

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That's the type of claim we're making when we say abortion is wrong. We're not making preference claims. We're saying it doesn't matter how you feel about it.

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We're saying it's objectively wrong. But one of the main reasons that most people continue to think about abortion as a preference claim, as a subjective claim, is because they've never seen what abortion is and does to unborn children.

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I'm fond of saying that it's easy to be pro -choice if you've never had to look at what that choice looks like.

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It's easy to be pro -choice when you're not the one being aborted. And it's also easy to say you're pro -life and do nothing about it if you've never had to look at how bad abortion is.

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Many pro -lifers know abortion is bad. Few of them know how bad. And I know that because I grew up in a pro -life family.

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I did the Walk for Life every year. I was the top childhood fundraiser every year. But it wasn't until my senior year in high school when

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I volunteered for a pro -life ministry that I saw abortion for exactly the heinous act that it was.

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And I had to scan 300 images of first trimester aborted children on their high quality scanner and categorize them in their database.

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And that was one of the most fundamental turning points of my life because I realized exactly how horrific abortion was.

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So we're not going to show any pictures or display or slides tonight, but I encourage you to go to abortionknow .org.

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That's abortionknow .org. And I encourage you to spend a few minutes there. Listen, it's easy to be pro -life.

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It's easy to say that. And it's easy to not engage. It's easy to not get off the bench until you know how evil abortion is.

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And when we look at the victims who literally have their limbs torn off of their body in an abortion, it's going to be uncomfortable and it's going to be disturbing.

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But you know what, friends, it's going to give you the drive that you need to fight this injustice, to know what they're going through.

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William Wilberforce once said that you may choose to look away, but you can never again say that you did not know.

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Proverbs 24 .11 says, hold back those staggering towards slaughter. And if you say we did not know about this, does not he who made your life know it?

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Does not he who sees your heart know it? And will he not judge man according to what he has done? Proverbs 24 is saying, listen, if you pretend to not know about the slaughter of innocents, but you do know, you're going to be judged for that.

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So I encourage you to spend some time to look at abortion imagery at abortionknow .org if you've never seen it before. It's very important for us to know what we're fighting and to know what we're trying to end.

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So that's the first way we have to equip ourselves to engage. We have to clarify the nature of moral reasoning.

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Secondly, we have to clarify the only question that matters. The only one in the abortion debate.

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Listen, our opponents tell us that abortion is a deeply complex moral issue, right? In reality, the entire complex debate only comes down to one question and one question only.

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And to illustrate what that one question is, I want you to imagine for a second that you're standing at your kitchen sink cleaning dishes one evening.

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And as you're standing there cleaning your dishes, your three -year -old toddler walks up behind you. Now your back is turned and your three -year -old toddler says,

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Mommy or Daddy, can I kill this? Can I kill this? Now, what would be the first question out of your mouth in response to your toddler's question, can

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I kill this? It would be, what is it, right? Because if you turn around and he's holding a cockroach, you know, you might say, here son, here's a hammer.

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Have fun. But if you turn around and he's holding the newborn neighbor puppy, you know, you're probably going to have a different reply.

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And if he's holding his little sister by the throat, you really have deeper problems now. So you couldn't answer the question, can

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I kill this, until you first answered the question, what is it? Similarly, on the issue of abortion, we can't honestly answer the question, can we kill the unborn, whatever the unborn is, until we first answer the question, what is the unborn?

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Ray Kockel, the president of Stand to Reason, says that if the unborn are not human, then no justification for abortion is necessary.

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Meaning if it's not a human, you don't have to justify it. Who cares? Get as many abortions as you'd like. But then he says, however, if the unborn are human, no justification for abortion is adequate.

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You can't provide a moral justification for the taking of an innocent human being's life if it's a human being.

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So we have to equip ourselves to engage by clarifying the nature of moral reasoning. We're not saying abortion is wrong because we dislike it.

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We're saying it's objectively wrong. Secondly, we equip ourselves to engage by clarifying the only question that matters, which is what is the unborn?

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And putting the burden of proof back on pro -choice individuals who say that we can kill whatever's in the womb.

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Well, you better be able to answer what that is before you kill it. And thirdly, we clarify the case for life.

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The case for life. This is where we make our defense for the pro -life position. This is where we bring moral clarity to this issue.

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And so many Christians who say they're pro -life and they love life. This is where they struggle.

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This is where they don't know exactly how to defend the humanity and dignity of the unborn child.

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So pro -life individuals make their case for life, their case for the rights of the child by using science and philosophy.

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And our case is both scientifically and philosophically sound. And once you understand that case, you can make it in a minute or less.

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So I'm going to give you the case for life, give you the tools of thought you need to make that case, and then I'm going to summarize it for you in a minute or less.

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Okay. So firstly, we start with the science. This answers the question, what is the unborn, right?

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And we turn to the science of embryology. What's that? Well, it's just the study of unborn human life.

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And we've known what the science of embryology has taught us for decades. And here is the summary of the findings from the science of embryology.

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From the moment of conception, right? When sperm and egg meet, sperm and egg die, new human being comes into existence.

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This was high school biology, right? From the early stages of development, from that moment, the unborn child is a distinct, living, and whole human being.

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Not a hole in the ground, W -H -O -L -E. What do these terms mean? Well, distinct means separate, right?

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Distinct means unique. Distinct means that I'm not you and you're not me. You're a distinct, unique individual.

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There's only one of you, right? And there will only ever be one of you. That's how God made it.

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So if the unborn child is a distinct human being from the moment of conception, then what does that mean to the abortion debate?

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Well, it means that the body in her body is not her body, right? And this makes sense because pregnant women do not have 20 fingers and 20 toes, two brains, two hearts, two different DNA codes, right?

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This is silly. And certainly, if she's pregnant with a boy, pregnant women do not have male genitalia.

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But you're told it's her body, her choice, right? That there's only one body involved. Obviously, that leads to some pretty strange conclusions.

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So the unborn child is distinct. Secondly, the unborn child is living. What does this mean? Well, dead things don't grow.

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The unborn child meets all of the requirements for a living thing that we learned in high school biology, and the unborn child directs their own internal growth from within.

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So believe it or not, pregnant women do not will their unborn children to develop, right? They don't rub their belly saying, don't forget to grow today, baby.

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Unborn children develop themselves from within. So they're living. And thirdly, the unborn child is whole.

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This is an important concept. And this is probably where people get the most confused on the issue of abortion is this idea of wholeness.

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Because we look at the six week embryo, right, in the womb, and we go, is that a whole human being?

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Because we confuse wholeness sometimes with development or rational faculties or functions, right?

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But that's an incorrect assumption. All that it means to be a whole human being is to have everything you need to realize your full growth and development as a participating member of the human species.

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Here's what I mean by that. I'm 29 and I'm not 40. Now, my wife recently found out that men don't reach their mental peak until their 40s, and she was very encouraged by that.

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I think she's holding out hope for me a little bit too much so you can pray for us. So look, there's aspects of my development

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I have not realized yet, correct? Does that mean I'm not a whole human being now, right?

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Of course not. Similarly, your children have not realized their full level of development, at least not to the same degree you have.

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Does that mean that they're not whole human beings now? You might feel like that sometimes, but of course that doesn't mean that at all.

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So similarly, the unborn child has everything they need from the moment of conception to realize their full growth and development as a participating member of the human species.

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So we all find ourselves on a different tick mark on the continuum of human development. But that continuum began at the moment of conception.

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This is what the science teaches us. Here's another analogy. I want you to imagine for a second that you have won tickets to a safari excursion in Africa, right?

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You get to go out into the middle of nowhere and you get to see wildlife in its natural habitat. The tour guide tells you over the vehicle that you're entering a territory where a black jaguar was sighted recently, right?

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Black jaguars are rarely seen and even more rarely photographed. And while all of your friends brought digital cameras and iPhones, you brought a

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Polaroid camera. Remember the camera that spits the photo out as soon as you take it? Yes, even I'm old enough to remember those.

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And then you shake it and the photo begins to develop, okay? So let's say that as all your friends are falling asleep right after sunset in those few minutes of twilight, the tour guide tells you over the intercom that we're entering an area where a black jaguar was sighted recently, okay?

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So you're pumped, right? You're excited to see this. And as the last ray of sunlight goes down, you see that black jaguar sprint out from the bushes, leap across the path in front of your car, and you manage to get a picture of him airborne with your camera.

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As the photo gets spit out and you begin to shake that photo, I rip it out of your hands, I tear it up into little pieces, and I throw it out the window.

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Now you're pissed at me, right? But what if I said, guys, calm down, just chill out, okay? Because that wasn't a picture of a black jaguar.

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That was just a black smudge on a white piece of paper. Now you would probably look at me with wide -eyed, wide -mouth horror and tell me,

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Seth, what are you talking about? The jaguar was already there. We just couldn't see him yet.

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Everything that was necessary for the photo to realize its full development was already present when the photo got spit out.

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It just needed time. See what I mean? In the same way, everything that is necessary for the unborn child to realize its full growth and development as one of us is already present at the moment of conception, even if we can't see him or her yet.

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All they need is time. That's what it means to be a whole human being.

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So the unborn child is not like skin cells, right, that I'm scratching off my hand right now. Those skin cells contain my

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DNA. So they're parts of wholes. I'm the whole human being. Those are parts of me.

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But nobody thinks I just committed mass homicide, do they? Because we understand this distinction between parts and wholes.

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But pro -abortion advocates make this mistake all the time. They assume that the unborn child in the womb is akin to skin cells on us.

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That it's just part of a whole human being. It has DNA in it, but it's not a person with rights.

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It's not a full human being. Incorrect assumption. The science teaches that the unborn child is a whole human being from the moment of conception.

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So you didn't come from an embryo and then become something else. You once were an embryo, right?

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Zygote, embryo, fetus, infant, toddler, teenager, adult, grandma and grandpa, right?

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Different terms that describe the same human being at different stages of their physical development.

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So that's what the science teaches us. And that answers the question, what is the unborn? They're a human being. This is plain and simple.

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Frankly, it's undisputed scientific fact. Anyone who disagrees with that, their argument is not with the pro -life movement.

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It's with the science of embryology. Secondly, we make our case using philosophy.

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And you know what philosophy is, right? It deals with questions of ultimate concern, right? First principles, right?

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The nature of truth. We turn to philosophy to make a case for the human equality of the unborn child, the equal rights, the rights of personhood.

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Now, maybe you're thinking, but we just proved it was a human. Yes, that would be a good question to ask.

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Wouldn't you think it would be enough to merely illustrate that the unborn child is a human, right?

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The pro -abortion movement says they're all about human rights. Well, I just proved to you it's a human. You're still saying we should be able to kill it.

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What's wrong with you, right? Unfortunately today, proving that the unborn child is biologically human is not enough for the partisans of abortion.

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Because they commit, intentionally, the same mistake. I guess if it's intentionally, it's not a mistake.

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The same political move towards the unborn that racists did towards Black and Nazis did towards Jews, which is to say they're humans, but they're not persons.

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And every time, friends, the term human from person have been separated, disastrous consequences have followed.

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Typically, a lot of dead innocent human beings sacrificed on an evil ideology by people in a power class who sit on high and determine who gets to live and who gets to die.

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This is the constant comparison between historically recognized forms of genocide.

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It's the dehumanization of the victim class so that you can deny them rights. And this is exactly what the pro -choice movement does to unborn children.

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They say they're humans, but they're not persons. Now, you and I would never separate those terms. We would use those terms synonymously.

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Human, person, person, human. It doesn't matter. It's the same thing. But those with a vested interest in dehumanizing a certain class of human beings will always separate those two terms for political power and for personal interest and in the issue of abortion for financial gain as well.

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So, believe it or not, we actually have to make a case for the equal value of the unborn child as a bearer of rights and that their value and their intrinsic dignity is completely equal to any born person.

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Here's our case. It goes like this. There is no value giving difference between the embryonic human being that you once were and the adult that you are today that would justify killing you at that earlier stage.

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Okay, I'll shorten that sentence even more. There is no value giving difference between the unborn human that you once were and the born human that you are today that would justify killing you, the unborn human.

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Now, does that mean that there's no differences between unborn humans and born humans? Of course not. There's obviously differences.

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My case is that none of those differences are morally relevant to the abortion debate. None of the differences between unborn people and born people matter and they can't be used to justify killing you when you were in the womb.

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But the differences between unborn people and born people are actually very important to go through, friends, because it is the very differences between us and our preborn neighbors that the pro -abortion advocate uses to dehumanize and justify killing the unborn in the first place.

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But here's their mistake. They fail to realize that the unborn child differs from us in the same ways that we differ from one another.

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So any difference that they point out between unborn people and born people to justify killing unborn people will be differences that all born people share as well.

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So any argument offered to kill the unborn could be used to kill born people as well. Does that make sense?

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So we're going to go through the differences between unborn people and born people and they're summarized in the acronym

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SLED. S -L -E -D. SLED stands for size, level of development, environment, and dependency.

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Size, level of development, environment, or location, and dependency.

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Let's go through these briefly. Is the unborn child smaller than the newborn child? Sure, but newborn children are smaller than toddlers and toddlers are smaller than teenagers.

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I'm six foot three, which means I'm probably larger than all of you. Does that mean I have greater rights?

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Does that mean I have more dignity than you? Of course not, because size has no bearing on rights, because our value doesn't come from our size.

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It comes from our human nature. And when did our human nature begin? The moment of conception. So if it would be wrong for me to kill you for being smaller than me, it's equally wrong to kill unborn children for being smaller than us.

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Why? Because they're also human beings. We just proved that from the science. The second difference between unborn people and born people is level of development.

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Yes, it's true, the unborn child is less developed than the newborn child, but newborn children are less developed than toddlers and toddlers are less developed than teenagers.

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Your parents are more developed than you and your grandparents are even more developed than you and your parents. Does that mean that grandparents have a greater degree of personhood than their grandchildren?

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Or that grandparents can kill their grandchildren because grandparents are more developed? Of course not, this is ludicrous.

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Because rights don't come from our level of development, they come from our human nature. The pro -abortion advocate often says, well, we can kill the unborn child because it can't feel pain, it's not viable, and it doesn't have brain waves, whatever differences they pick.

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But what is necessary for the unborn child to realize those capacities? A level of development, given time they will realize those functions.

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So they're saying we can kill unborn children, simply because they're less developed. The third difference is environment or location.

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Yes, the unborn child is located in a very unique environment, the womb, right? By the way, we're all former womb dwellers, right?

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We're all unaborted human beings. That's where we all came from. Our mothers made the right choice. That's why we're here.

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As Reagan once said, I've noticed everyone who's for abortion has already been born. How ironic.

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But where one is has no bearing on who one is, as Frank Beckwith says. Our value is not dependent on our location.

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It doesn't come and go as we come and go. Our rights stand apart from where we find ourselves.

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And this makes sense because otherwise we'd have to admit the ludicrous conclusion that the unborn child has zero rights as it's leaving the birth canal.

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But apparently, when that last toe slips out of the birth canal, congratulations, baby personhood.

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Apparently, it's the magical birth canal. It just confers personhood as the baby slides out. This is ridiculous because where one is has no bearing on who one is.

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The last difference is dependency. Sure, the unborn child is dependent on the mother. But it is in virtue of being an unborn human being to be dependent on your mother, right?

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And hey, does that dependency stop after birth? What happens if you leave an infant in a crib and do nothing?

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They die and you're charged with infanticide. But what if the mom said, my breast, my choice, my body, my choice.

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I don't have to breastfeed them. Would that argument hold up in a court of law? Of course not. Because it's actually the fact that you are more dependent that calls a greater duty from me to take care of you.

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So what a tragic inversion of justice and mercy that rather than saying as a society, because you baby in the womb are dependent and need help,

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I have a greater obligation to give it. No, instead we say, it's actually because you're dependent on your mother.

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That's actually why I'm going to say we can kill you. It's that dependency that makes you disposable.

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This is disgusting. And if we can kill unborn children for being dependent on their mothers, which they are in virtue of being unborn, can we kill born people who are dependent on heart pacemakers, kidney machines, insulin, life support, caretakers?

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Like the child in the womb, they're dependent on someone or something else without which they cannot continue to live.

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Who wants to get on board with killing those people? I didn't think so. So notice the unborn child differs from us in the same ways that we differ from one another, right?

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We differ from one another according to our size, our level of development, our environment, and our dependency.

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So if I can't kill you for differing in those ways, then you can't kill the unborn for differing in those ways.

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Because our rights do not come from those types of functions, capacities, or accidental characteristics.

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They come from our human nature. That's the only thing we have in common. Therefore, it's the only thing that can ground objective human rights across time and space.

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So notice, we just made a case for life from science and philosophy, and we've done it without citing

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Bible verses to make our case. But we're communicating biblical truth nonetheless. And this is because we live in God's world and we have to abide by his rules.

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That's because eternity is written on the heart of man and God's reign falls on the just and the unjust. And it means that even those who reject

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God can't help but have their hearts resonate with the truth. They can't help but realize truth when they see it, even if they're doing all that they can to suppress that truth and deny the existence of God.

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So we can make a case for the value of the unborn child from science and philosophy that communicates the biblical truth that these are image bearers of God with intrinsic dignity.

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But we're not citing Bible verses to make our case. Now, I'm going to summarize the case for life in under 60 seconds.

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You ready? According to the science of embryology, the unborn child is a distinct living and whole human being.

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Philosophically, pro -lifers argue that there's no value giving difference between the embryo you were in the womb and the adults you are outside the womb that would make it okay to kill you in the womb.

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Differences in size, level of development, environment, and dependency are not good reasons for saying that you had no right to life in the womb.

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Oh, but you do now. There you go. There's the case for life. So if we're going to equip ourselves to engage, we have to clarify the nature of moral reasoning.

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What type of claims are we making? We're saying abortion is objectively wrong, whether you like it or not. Secondly, we equip ourselves to engage by clarifying the only question that matters, which is what is the unborn?

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And forcing the other side to answer that question. They're the ones saying we can kill whatever's in the womb. They have the burden of proof to prove it's not a human.

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And thirdly, we equip ourselves to engage by clarifying the case for life by merely affirming the science which says the unborn is human and pointing out that the argument to kill unborn human beings cannot be confined to the womb.

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In fact, it works equally well to justify killing people outside the womb because the unborn differs from us in the same ways that we differ from one another.

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Thirdly, if we're going to be effective ambassadors for the unborn to defend life in this hostile political climate, we have to sacrifice to engage.

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We have to make personal sacrifices on behalf of our unborn neighbors. Listen, Greg Cunningham, one of the longtime leaders of the pro -life movement, once said this sobering truth.

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He said there are more people working full -time to kill babies than there are working full -time to save them.

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That's because killing babies is very profitable while saving them is very costly.

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So costly that large numbers of people who say they oppose abortion are not lifting a finger to stop it.

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And those that do lift a finger do just enough to salve the conscience, but not enough to stop the killing.

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A stinging rebuke on the American church and the silence of our pulpits on the abortion of the lambs that even those who speak life and defend life do just enough to make themselves feel good so they can check their pro -life box and not enough to actually stop the killing.

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And I think if you're honest with yourselves, you would say that that truth accurately describes probably your church, maybe yourself as well.

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It's time for us to get off the bench and it's time for us to sacrifice to engage on behalf of those who cannot engage, those who cannot defend themselves, our pre -born neighbors.

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So how can we sacrifice? Practically, what does this look like? Well, firstly, you need to learn how to communicate the pro -life position persuasively.

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I know you're not going to remember everything I said this evening. So take time to learn how to defend life.

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My podcast is called Unaborted with Seth Gruber. I air an episode every Monday, 45 minutes to an hour.

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It's typically cultural analysis of what's happening right now while unpacking the ideas, translating pro -abortion rhetoric into reality so you're equipped to engage the culture.

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But I also do a lot of topical and evergreen episodes that you can replay to disciple yourself to be an ambassador for the unborn.

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You can subscribe to my newsletter at SethGruber .com and you'll get regular pro -life content delivered to your email.

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Secondly, start a pro -life group or ministry in your community or at your church.

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Francis Schaeffer once said that every abortion clinic ought to have a sign out front that says, open with the permission of the

51:30

Church of Jesus Christ. And sadly, that is accurate. That is accurate. It's been 48 years and the church has done almost nothing to end the genocide of baby image bearers, but studies from pro -life organizations have shown that roughly 80 % of women who drive into the parking lot of an abortion clinic to kill their baby will turn around and leave if there are just people standing outside and praying.

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Not yelling, not holding even signs, just standing there and praying. That's incredible.

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Can you imagine if five or ten Christians in every county, not even city, county in which there were abortion clinics committed to regularly standing outside of those clinics the days that they performed abortions with signs saying, we'll adopt your baby, we'll pay for your delivery fee, we'll give you an apartment, you can have our back house, and showing them pictures of what their child looks like before they go and kill them.

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Can you imagine the amount of babies we would save? We would bankrupt the abortion industry in a matter of months or years.

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But we don't do it because we're too addicted to our comfort. So start a pro -life ministry at your church.

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If your church is not friendly to starting a pro -life ministry, if your pastor does not preach on abortion, find another church.

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Take your tithing elsewhere. I'm serious. And if they're friendly to it, then book me to come speak at your church and let's get a pro -life ministry started there.

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Okay, we can no longer be complicit. Not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act.

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God will not hold us guiltless. By being silent, our pastors are complicit in evil.

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Like Tim Keller saying that you don't really have to act politically to protect the unborn. By relegating abortion to the realm of not political or it doesn't matter, and you can vote either way, these

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Christian leaders and pastors are actually saying that it's not a moral issue. Because if you're saying the unborn is not valuable enough to be protected politically, you're saying that their deaths don't matter that much.

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Those are not the kind of pastors or Christian leaders you should be sitting under. So start a pro -life group at your church.

53:39

Thirdly, offer to pay the bills if necessary to help women in unplanned pregnancies. A lot of us don't have financial ability to be able to do that, but our churches should be doing that, right?

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Our churches should be advertising their willingness to pay for whatever bills are necessary to help a mother achieve life.

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Now her financial difficulties are not a moral justification for abortion. But imagine if the church was putting our money where our mouth was and saving those children.

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Fourthly, advertise the church's willingness to adopt and raise any child. Your church ought to be advertising that regularly.

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Adoption Sundays, pro -life Sundays, local foster care, local orphanages, local orphan care, you know, local, there's a great one here,

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Olive Crest in Orange County. Wonderful organizations. Churches should be teamed up with those in advertising their willingness, getting on their list, saying we will adopt and raise any child, telling the local pregnancy resource center that if a woman is abortion minded, here's a list of families who will adopt your baby.

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And if you'd like to meet them, we can introduce you to them. Fifthly, organize a weekly prayer meeting outside your local abortion clinic, right?

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Get your people from your church out there. If you want resources to do this and this feels overwhelming, go to Love Life.

54:49

Okay, Love Life. I can't know. I don't remember. It's a .org or .com, but the ministry Love Life out of Charlotte, North Carolina, they're doing phenomenal work and they're helping disciple and mentor up Christians in other churches around the country to launch chapters at their church.

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And their main thing is, hey, we're just going to be obedient. We're just going to take a few people with us, stand outside of the doors of death and pray, and sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, pray for these children and mothers, and try to rescue them and hold them back from staggering towards slaughter.

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And these women are choosing life. They're joining the church. They're getting saved and then they're dedicating their children in the very church with the very pastor that helps save their child's life.

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Love Life does incredible work. They're available as a resource for your church. So please use them and get people at your church to stand outside of the abortion mills.

55:39

Listen, in the parable of the Good Samaritan, a bleeding victim is sitting on the side of the road bleeding out.

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Two pastors walk by on the other side of the road, don't they? Levite and a priest and do nothing. In fact, they go out of their way to avoid the bleeding victim.

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How many pastors today, how many of us, how many Christians say they're pro -life, but we drive by the abortion clinic on our way to work or on our way to church to prep our sermon and we say, oh, pro -life, brother.

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Thank God for the local pregnancy resource center. Well, babies are literally being torn limb from limb and we don't do anything about it.

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Now, I'm not saying burn down abortion clinics. I'm not saying resort to violence. I condemn that. But do something.

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Show up and do something. This is the role of the church, is to love our neighbor. How do you love a neighbor that it is currently legal to kill and whose deaths you're forced to fund?

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Well, save them. Stop the slaughter. There's two ways to do that. One, you act politically. You vote pro -life.

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You act politically to protect that child, to stop the slaughter. And secondly, you adopt personal responsibility to stop the slaughter by standing outside of the doors of death saying, we'll adopt your baby.

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We love you. We will support you. Consider getting your church to do that. Number six, support pro -life organizations and your local pregnancy resource center.

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Okay, pregnancy resource centers are on the front lines. It is inexcusable that pregnancy resource centers are so underfunded and understaffed.

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Our churches, every church that wants to live up to its name, it's the Church of Jesus Christ, ought to be giving a portion of their tithe to the local pregnancy resource center who are literally in the ditches saving children and ministering to mothers and fathers who are contemplating killing their own child.

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There's no excuse for them to be struggling financially. If you want to support me to do this full -time,

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I go all around the country, and this is what I do. I discuss these ideas with young people before they're gone and lost to secular university professor kooks who think abortion is reproductive justice.

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So I go into Protestant Catholic high schools and youth groups and churches, right, and secular universities. So if you want to support me, you can do that, pro -lifetraining .com.

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Pro -lifetraining .com. You just pick my name there from the fund preference. You can support me on a monthly basis if you want.

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That's how I do this full -time. But if not my organization, pick a pro -life organization. Support one.

57:55

And lastly, vote pro -life. Listen, it is a moral wrong for Christians to vote for the party of genocide.

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It's a moral wrong. And those who tell us that you can somehow vote for Democrats today and be a

58:07

Christian and be pro -life, because it's totally fine, brothers. Tim Keller says, liberty of conscience. It's permissible.

58:13

All things are permissible. Would never say the same thing about voting for the Democratic Party in the 1850s, would they?

58:19

You know they wouldn't. You know they would not say, you have liberty of conscience to vote for the party of the KKK and slavery.

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Because the Bible doesn't tell us the best way to end slavery. No, no. The same people lecturing you on how you can't be a single issue voter and it's okay for pro -lifers to vote for the

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Democratic Party, those same people will turn around and tell you that it was a moral wrong for Christians to vote for the

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Democratic Party in the 1850s. Scratching your head yet? Cognitive dissonance yet? Exactly. Because what does that tell you?

58:46

It tells you that they don't really believe the unborn child to be a full person. Or if they do, that their deaths are not serious enough to justify a single issue vote.

58:55

They are not, as Hadley Arck says, possessed of a lively sense that there are real human beings getting killed in these surgeries.

59:02

If they were, they would demand the same political solution to protect the pre -born as they did to protect slaves, right?

59:08

Because if the slave and the child in the womb are both persons with equal dignity, then shouldn't we support the same political solutions to restore personhood and legal protections to them?

59:18

You'd think so. So the same people who tell you this are really not convinced that the unborn child is an image bearer of God with full rights.

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And they are not on our side. They are not on our team. And they're trying to undercut the pro -life movement and siphon votes away from the only political party reasonably situated to restore personhood to the unborn.

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We must vote pro -life. I want to end with this. We may be living in a distinct place in human history, but the battle that we face, friends, is one that our spiritual forefathers have faced before us.

59:51

Many of you have seen the film Schindler's List. And if you've seen the film or you've read the book, then you'll know exactly how powerful

01:00:00

Oskar Schindler's story and his example was. If you haven't seen the film or read the book,

01:00:05

I apologize, but this is a spoiler. Oskar Schindler was a very rich businessman.

01:00:11

He was an entrepreneur, okay? And he was actually a member of the Nazi party. But you see,

01:00:18

God pricked his conscience. God got a hold of his heart. And Schindler began to become horrified at the atrocities being committed against his

01:00:25

Jewish brothers and sisters, right? His Jewish image bearers of God. And so what did he do?

01:00:31

Well, Oskar Schindler began to exhaust his great wealth and net worth to buy

01:00:36

Jews off of the Nazi death camp lists, right? And employ them in his factory to hide them from the

01:00:43

Nazis. By the end of the war, Oskar Schindler was nearly broke, having spent all of his money in exchange for life, in exchange for saving human beings from a holocaust, from a genocide.

01:00:55

And if you've seen the film, you'll know that because of Oskar Schindler's sacrifices, he saved over 1 ,000 human beings.

01:01:04

That turned into generations of human beings, right, who were alive because of one man's personal sacrifices to save innocent human beings from state -sanctioned slaughter.

01:01:16

And at the end of the film, Oskar Schindler is standing surrounded by hundreds of individuals who owe him their very lives, right?

01:01:23

And as the announcement rings out that the war is over, and the allied troops have won,

01:01:30

Oskar Schindler stands there and he begins to weep. He begins to weep tears down his face.

01:01:37

And his friend approaches him and says, my brother, what is wrong? And through tears in his eyes,

01:01:44

Oskar Schindler says, I could have saved one more. I could have saved one more.

01:01:51

And he looks at his fancy car, one of the last items to his name, and he says, my car, my car.

01:01:59

Why did I keep my car? He said, I could have sold that. I could have saved 10 more.

01:02:07

And his friend says, no, no, these people are alive today because of your sacrifices. Don't think like that.

01:02:13

And then Schindler looks at the golden pin on his jacket that identifies him as a member of the Nazi party, and he says, my pin, this is gold.

01:02:23

I could have sold this. I could have saved three more, at least one more.

01:02:29

I could have saved one more. Friends, this was coming from a man who went to the wall to love his neighbor, who was nearly broke at the end of the war because he traded his personal wealth in exchange for saving human beings from a

01:02:47

Holocaust. The question that Oskar Schindler leaves us with today, friends, the question that echoes from the 1940s to 2020 is this.

01:02:59

Do we take our Holocaust in 2020 as seriously as Oskar Schindler took his?

01:03:06

Because if we do, if we truly do, then, friends, I need you to engage.

01:03:12

I need you equipped to engage, and I need you, like Oskar Schindler, to make personal sacrifices, to engage, to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, and to use your wealth to save human beings from a

01:03:28

Holocaust, so that one day when you stand before the creator of the universe, there will be countless children who will owe you their very lives and will say, thank you for sacrificing.

01:03:39

Thank you for letting me live out the purpose that God had for my life. Thank you for loving me as your neighbor.

01:03:47

That's what we're called to. Christ said all the law and the commandments hang on to. Love the

01:03:53

Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself. How do we love a neighbor that it's currently legal to kill?

01:03:59

We make personal sacrifices to save them and defend them. Thank you, friends, and I'll see you on the battlefield.

01:04:05

Go and give them heaven. Oh, that was

01:04:13

Yeah, I got it. Yeah Wow Yeah I've never seen that movie before, but this isn't the first time that I heard you tell that story, and both times

01:04:23

I got goosebumps big time, because that is a pretty powerful story, and it's a great analogy, so thanks for all of the great lists and information.

01:04:36

It's a lot to take in, so we're glad that we're recording it, and also it's been on Facebook so that people can watch it and replay it and learn from that.

01:04:45

So we do have one question right now from the audience, and this is what is the percentage of pregnant mothers that turn away when there are people outside of a clinic?

01:04:57

Yeah, so the only stats we have are from pro -life organizations, because nobody else would do these studies, right?

01:05:03

Nobody else cares enough to do these studies. So unfortunately, I do have to use biased sources, because that's the only ones that I'm aware of, but about 80 percent, and I think

01:05:12

Pregnancy Health News has done some research on this, Heartbeat International has done some research on this and other pro -life organizations, but about 80 percent they found when they're there regularly and consistently, if they're standing on the sidewalks, if they're praying, if they just have a presence there that women who drive in will turn away and not go into their appointment.

01:05:31

And what does that tell us? It tells us that eternity is written on the heart of man. So it tells us that even individuals who are so low that they are now rationalizing, paying a hitman to kill their child, still have a conscience, they still have a level of guilt, they still have shame, because they don't want to be seen doing something shameful, going into an abortion clinic to kill their child.

01:05:53

So that means there's hope. This is a great conservative consolation, right? Reality always reasserts itself in the end.

01:05:59

Reality always climbs out of the caves that modern leftists have buried it in, and it slaps us in the face.

01:06:04

And when it does that, we would do well to turn the other cheek. Greet reality for the friend that he is and welcome him back into our lives.

01:06:11

That's all that we're doing when we stand outside of those clinics, is we're advocating for reality. This is your child.

01:06:17

Look at them. They're alive. Their heart is beating. They can hear you, and we are here for both of you.

01:06:22

And if Christians are merely obedient to do that and stand outside of the doors of death, I'm convinced that if just 10 or 15

01:06:29

Christians in every county in which there were abortion clinics committed to be outside of them every time they performed abortions, we could bankrupt the abortion industry in a matter of a year or a few years, because the demand would be so low.

01:06:42

We'd be saving so many children. Women would be realizing that abortion is not the solution. They'd be getting connected with people who want to help them, getting them plugged in with their church, with people who will provide spiritual and financial support.

01:06:54

And then, of course, no woman who gives birth to her child says, well, I really regret this. I wish I had killed them through abortion.

01:06:59

And we would really be fighting for the soul of the country at that point, because as long as we don't get the right to life right, we're not going to get any other rights right.

01:07:07

As long as we continue to kill our own children, all other rights that flow from the right to life will constantly be endangered.

01:07:14

And so, yes, advocating for life is literally saving children, but it's also much more than that. We're actually advocating for the very soul of the country itself by restoring that first and most important of all rights, life, to those and the last class of victims who don't have it, unborn children.

01:07:31

Yeah, definitely. And this is, I mean, we're seeing that so much right now. This is, this election is such a big, a big deal.

01:07:39

It's a big turning point, that and the, and the judge right now. So, are there any other questions?

01:07:48

Can you give your website again? Yeah, my website is just my name. It's SethGruber .com,

01:07:54

G -R -U -B -E -R .com, SethGruber .com. You can sign up for my newsletter there. And then our organization's website is

01:08:00

ProLifeTraining .com. And it has all of our speakers on there. It has blogs.

01:08:05

It has other resources available to you as well. I blog fairly regularly. And then, of course,

01:08:10

I have my speaking schedule and I have my podcast on my website and you can book me through the website.

01:08:16

My, my website's a little bit more just informational. It's not so much a resource with a bunch of, you know, you're not going to find a bunch of ProLife stats or data in there.

01:08:26

But through my podcast, you'll get a fire hose of that. So. Okay, and we put links for all of the websites that you mentioned.

01:08:34

We put them in the notes on the Facebook video. So, on the comments, so people will be able to go back through and click on those.

01:08:42

Um, we do have, I just want to, oh, let me quick throw in. We don't have a speaker budget.

01:08:48

We're a very low budget, no budget organization. So, if anybody's willing to help out, you, you, you can get that information, uh, from Terry or on the website.

01:08:58

Back to you, Terry. Oh, okay. Uh, we do have another question. What do you think of the DNR for the elderly?

01:09:06

What's DNR? Do not resuscitate. Do not resuscitate. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, so abortion has really poisoned our politics because once we accepted the premise that there wasn't, there wasn't something so portentous about the taking of human life anymore, we began to, we began to see the dehumanization of all other types of human beings, right?

01:09:35

This, this, so this whole idea right now of like doctor assisted suicide, right? Or euthanasia. Guess what?

01:09:41

We weren't having those conversations before we got abortion. Abortion has just absolutely ruined the soul of the country and it's made everything about abortion.

01:09:50

But once we accepted that premise, we began to see the dehumanization of human beings at other stages of development as well, which makes sense, right?

01:09:57

I mean, the, the pro -choice movement's entire worldview is that you can kill a child in the womb because it's not wanted, right?

01:10:05

We just saw John Legend and Chrissy Teigen mourning the death of their child that they lost to miscarriage. Now, don't get me wrong,

01:10:10

I've lost a child to miscarriage. I was mourning with them, but I wrote a blog post saying, isn't this strange because they're massive

01:10:17

Planned Parenthood donors. Wait a second. I'm sorry. You give money to organizations that kill children in the womb 10 weeks older than the child you lost because it's not a person, right?

01:10:29

It's just a blob of tissue. So why are you mourning the loss of your child who according to you is an insensate non -person blob of tissue?

01:10:36

What? Right, it makes no sense. So once we begin to dehumanize human beings by saying they're only valuable if they're wanted, shocker, we begin to accept the premises that we can kill older people who are not wanted or are an inconvenience to their children who don't want to care for them.

01:10:54

So yeah, don't resuscitate because I don't really want to do that. I don't want to deal with my old grandmother or my old mother, right?

01:11:00

Uh, doctor assisted suicide. Sure. You want to kill yourself? I'll help you do that. I'll walk you down the door of death. Oh, you want to euthanize them because you know, they don't have all their rational faculties anymore.

01:11:10

Maybe they won't be aware of it. Sure. Let's do that as well. They're not wanted. So of course, I'm opposed to any form of refusal to care, refusal to try to preserve life insofar as we can, right?

01:11:24

I mean, there reaches a point, right, where extraordinary life support might reach the extent to where you know, it's not immoral for a family to say, well, apart from this life support, they wouldn't even be alive.

01:11:37

They're in a lot of pain. Maybe we let them meet Jesus. That's different, right? Because that's not intentionally killing, is it?

01:11:43

Abortion is intentionally killing. Failing to resuscitate is not taking the active measures to preserve life when you should because it's not wanted.

01:11:52

I don't prescribe value to you. So therefore, who cares? So it's all the same world for you.

01:11:57

It all fits into the same disregard for human life. Yeah, definitely.

01:12:03

And right. And part of the studies that we do, we study logic and reasoning.

01:12:10

And so that was one of the things that you said is that we have to first clarify moral reasoning. So that's something that I hear our group is familiar with that we've studied and knowing that the

01:12:21

Bible is the absolute standard and everything has to go back to that and people who don't base their views on that.

01:12:27

They don't have anything. They're inconsistent in their reasoning. Yep. Okay. Oh, here we go.

01:12:34

What is your opinion of negative pro -life signs at protests or outside the clinic?

01:12:41

Does the rate of abortions go up or down? I'm assuming by negative they're meaning abortion imagery.

01:12:51

I mean negative in the sense that it's disturbing, right? But I am actually an advocate of abortion imagery.

01:12:59

And here's the reason. Every social reformer has used shocking imagery of the injustice in question to prick the collective conscience of the culture and force them to reconcile with that which they're apathetic towards.

01:13:15

To reconcile that which they're supportive of, right? So William Wilberforce pre -photography age in the

01:13:23

British colonies was actually paying, ready? He was paying artists to depict graphic depictions of the horrific conditions that slaves went through on the passage to the

01:13:34

British colonies. And you can go look at some of the paintings or rather the sketches, right?

01:13:40

Martin Luther King Jr. was an advocate of showing the brutal realities of racism.

01:13:46

Emmett Till, do you remember the story of Emmett Till, the young boy who apparently called or whistled at a young woman in a restaurant in Honey, Mississippi, I believe.

01:13:57

And two or three days later the woman's husband and his friends found

01:14:03

Emmett Till, beat him to unrecognizably, until his face looked like a deflated football, threw him into the

01:14:12

Mississippi River with twine around his neck. And when the police found Emmett Till days later, they didn't know who he was.

01:14:19

Once they did, ready for this, Emmett Till's mother requested an open casket funeral.

01:14:26

Now, what would be the response of many people to that? Well, I'll tell you what. They said, honey, don't do this.

01:14:33

Well, again, get ready. They said, don't disrespect your son. Right. This is one of the arguments

01:14:38

I get from pro -life people who don't like abortion imagery. You're disrespecting the aborted children. Well, Emmett Till's mother decided to have an open casket funeral.

01:14:47

You know what she said to the newspaper? I want the world to see what they did to my little boy.

01:14:54

Ready for this? Historians believe that it was not Rosa Parks' actions in sitting in the front of the bus that was the spark to the civil rights movement.

01:15:03

They believe it was the published photo of Emmett Till in that newspaper on that day. Why? Because racism got a face and it was an ugly face, wasn't it?

01:15:13

People were forced to look at exactly that which they were complicit in, which was the mistreatment of our brothers and sisters, our

01:15:21

African American brothers and sisters, right? So every social reformer has used shocking imagery of the injustice in question to force the culture to come to terms with what they're supporting, either through an act of sin of commission by directly supporting it or a sin of omission by doing nothing and allowing it to happen.

01:15:40

Well, guess what, friends? Abortion is the most hidden injustice in world history. It's the most hidden injustice.

01:15:48

Nobody sees what's happening in these clinics, in these surgeries, when limbs are torn off of bodies or abortion pills are poisoning babies to death.

01:15:57

Nobody sees it. We see our refugee neighbors. We see our veteran neighbors.

01:16:03

We see our homeless neighbors. We see our actual neighbors. We don't see our unborn neighbors and we don't see the violence committed against them.

01:16:11

So it's high time for us to open the casket on abortion. We do so graciously.

01:16:16

We do so winsomely, but we do so nonetheless. Because Ephesians 5 .11 says, have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

01:16:28

Bring them into the light. That's my position on that. Like, like the guy who released the videos from Planned Parenthood?

01:16:38

Yeah, David Delighted. And, and now, did I see in a news update that, that he's having some success in court?

01:16:46

Uh, he goes back and forth all the time. Poor guy's been in it for over five years now, but yeah. Okay, so, um,

01:16:55

I don't see any more questions right now. Does anybody have another question? If you'd like to raise your hand and, and ask a question yourself, you can go ahead and do that.

01:17:04

Just let me know that you'd like to, or else you can type your question. We're still on Facebook, but if we're winding down, then we can go ahead and, and call that.

01:17:20

Robin? You want to go ahead and, and end Facebook for now? I'm, I'm trying.