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Sermon Notes: http://notes.cornerstonesj.org
Opposite the Edomite Spirit
We're gonna sing a few songs together. Savior, He can move the mountains.
My God is mighty to save. He is mighty to save forever.
Author of salvation, He rose and conquered the grave.
Jesus conquered the grave. So take me as you find me.
All my fears and failures fill my life again.
I give my life to follow everything I believe in.
Now I surrender, oh,
I surrender all. Savior, He can move the mountains.
Conquered the grave. Shine your light and let the whole world see.
We're singing for the glory of the risen King, Jesus.
Shine your light and let the whole world see. We're singing for the glory of the risen
King. Savior, He can move the mountains.
My God is mighty to save. He is mighty to save.
For Jesus conquered the grave.
This next song is a modern hymn, and it talks about the gift of grace, our
Redeemer, Jesus Christ, as we prepare to open God's word, open our hearts, and take communion together.
It's a great reminder of the salvation that we have, something that we should always, daily, so that we don't have that prideful thing going in our heart that we've arrived, that we've done something, because it's not us.
That gift of grace. There is no more for heaven now to give.
He is my joy, my righteousness and freedom.
My steadfast love, my deep and boundless peace.
To this I hold. My hope is only
Jesus. For my love to Him.
Oh, how sweetly, gently, I can sing.
All is mine. Night is dark, but I am not forsaken.
For by my side, yes sir, we will stand.
I will stand rejoicing.
For in my need, His power is displayed.
To this I hold. My shepherd will defend me.
This valley, here I shall.
No fate I dread. A future short.
But Christ has been paid. For Jesus fled and suffered for pardon.
To this I hold. My sin has been defeated.
Jesus now and ever is my King. Oh, the chains of all the ways,
I can see. I am free at last.
With every breath,
I long to follow Jesus. With every breath,
I long to follow Jesus. And He has said that He will bring me home.
I stand with joy before the throne. To this
I hold. My hope is only Jesus. All the glory evermore to Him.
This complete, still my lips shall repeat.
Yet not I, but through Christ in me. When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat.
Yet not I, but through Christ in me.
Our God, we thank
You so much that we can now open Your Word. We pray that through Your Word, You would transform us into the likeness of Christ.
That is our prayer this morning, Lord, that we would be like Christ. We know that Christ is in us.
We are new creations in Him. And we pray that You would make us more like Him through studying
Your Word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The New York House Chamber erupted with celebration.
The Senate, the House, the Governor, all of them excited, shouting, cheering.
Some of them were pounding on the tables. They were celebrating like their team just won the
Super Bowl. What were they so happy about? January 2019, they had passed a law allowing the killing of innocent babies from the 24th week of pregnancy all the way through to the end of the term.
They were celebrating abortion, the killing of the innocent. And somehow this brought them great joy.
In fact, Cuomo on that day lit up the World Trade Center pink as a celebration and a declaration really of gloating over the lives of these innocent babies.
A few days ago, the Texas Supreme Court upheld a
Texas ruling that babies could not be killed in the womb after the heartbeat is detected.
And for that, we give glory to God that He has worked in that way.
Now, that is a bit of a two -edged sword because what it implies is that until the baby has a heartbeat at the six -week mark that it's still okay to kill children.
We don't want to set that precedent. But we see that in New York versus in Texas there's quite a difference.
In one case, there was moaning. In Texas, the law was passed. Those who opposed that were very upset.
It is really disheartening to see that there are those in our culture who would even celebrate and gloat over the death of the innocent.
I will call that the Edomite spirit for reasons we'll get to in the text.
An Edomite spirit. An Edomite spirit gloats over the slaughter of the innocents.
But the Christian spirit is quite different. Those of us who know Christ understand that we are called to intercede where the innocent are led to the slaughter.
We are called to interpose even to risk our lives if need be.
To step in and rescue and help. So turn with me to Matthew 2 verses 16 -18.
Today we will begin with the slaughter of the innocents. Matthew 2, 16 -18.
It says, Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious.
And he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old and under according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men.
Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah. A voice was heard in Ramah weeping and loud lamentation.
Rachel weeping for her children. She refused to be comforted because they are no more.
This of course is the slaughter of the innocents where Herod trying to kill Jesus because the ultimate opposition of people in this world is not to us or to other people.
It's ultimately a rebellion against God. Those who do not know
Christ as Savior rage against him and seek to blow his bonds apart.
Psalm chapter 2. That is where this rage comes from. Herod was raging against Christ.
Sought to destroy Christ. Couldn't get his hands on him. And so in an effort to eliminate him killed the children of Bethlehem.
It's a horrifying story but some of you don't know this. That Herod himself was an
Edomite. He was not an Israelite although he was reigning as king over Israel.
He was a transplant from the local next nation over in the mountains east of Jerusalem there was a nation called
Edom. These were actually the descendants of Esau. Jacob and Esau struggled within the womb and born as twins they were always against each other.
Jacob tricking Esau. Well Esau grew to become a nation of his own and settled east of Israel.
And when the Israelites sought to come out of Egypt and come to the promised land
Edom would not let them pass. They were not their brother's keeper they were always opposed to Israel.
And here you have Herod the Edomite against the Israelites killing the innocent children, the babies of Bethlehem.
Today we're going to spend a majority of our time in the book of Obadiah. So did any of you have trouble finding
Matthew? That might have been a hard book to find in your Bible. If you had trouble there this is going to be even harder but I think we can do it.
Turn with me to the Old Testament book of Obadiah. This book is only one page long, 21 verses.
The shortest book in the Old Testament but we'll have a chance because it's so short to read the whole thing.
You can find it by turning to Amos and then it's the next book over.
It's right before Jonah. When you've got it say
I got it. Y 'all got it? Alright. Everybody on their iPhone is like why is this hard?
It's a click of a button. So the book of Obadiah is very interesting.
Some of you may never have read it so we'll have the opportunity as we go quickly through it to go through the whole thing.
It is a judgment against Edom. Once again who are the Edomites? Descendants of Esau.
So in the first nine verses we see that God is very angry with the
Edomites and he is proclaiming judgment. Let's read it. The vision of Obadiah and I will interject comments so be warned.
This vision comes either in the 700 B .C. or at 586 B .C. when the
Babylonians conquer Jerusalem. It may have been an earlier occasion where the
Philistines and Arabians ganged up. Scholars are divided and it's really not important to know the circumstances of which one.
What we need to understand though is that Jerusalem is being attacked and their brother
Edom is perched like an eagle in its nest in the mountains above but they're unwilling to help.
So here's what God says. Thus says the Lord God concerning Edom. We have heard a report from the
Lord and a message has been sent among the nations. Rise up. Let us rise against her for battle.
So God is against the Edomites. Behold, I will make you small among the nations.
You shall be utterly despised. The pride of your heart has deceived you.
You who live in the clefts of the rock in your lofty dwelling who say in your heart who will bring me down to the ground?
Though you soar aloft like the eagle though your nest is set among the stars, from there
I will bring you down declares the Lord. So God is very angry with the Edomites. They're resting secure up in their mountain clefts.
They're safe there because no one can climb the mountains and conquer them. Their main city is called
Petra. Maybe you've seen it in Indiana Jones. They're high above the nations and they feel very secure.
They're not worried. Nobody can touch them but God is angry at them because of what's going on in their hearts.
They're prideful. Here's what he says about the judgment coming. Verse 5 through 9.
If thieves came to you if plunderers came by night, how you have been destroyed.
He pauses just to marvel at how bad this destruction will be. Would they not steal only enough for themselves?
In other words, if a burglar broke in, he would just take the most valuable things that he wants but you're going to get plundered worse than that.
This burglar is going to try to wipe you out and humiliate you and take everything that you have.
Verse 6 or the end of verse 5. If grape gatherers came to you, would they not leave gleanings?
Wouldn't a grape gatherer just take what he wanted, not like every single grape? How Esau has been pillaged.
His treasure sought out. All your allies have driven you to your border. Those at peace with you have deceived you.
They have prevailed against you. Those who eat your bread have set a trap beneath you. You have no understanding.
Will I not on that day, declares the Lord, destroy the wise men out of Edom and understanding out of Mount Esau and your mighty men shall be dismayed,
O temen. Which is another name for a city in Esau, in Edom. So that every man from Mount Esau will be cut off by slaughter.
Sound like a good situation for Esau? No, this is very, very harsh judgment that is going to fall upon them.
So the question is, this morning, why is God so angry with Edom?
What is this Edomite spirit, this haughtiness of heart that he is so angry about?
Fortunately, we get that answer now in verse 10. The answer is, they stand aloof over violence done to the innocent.
Verse 10. Because of the violence done to your brother
Jacob, shame shall cover you and you shall be cut off forever.
On the day that you stood aloof, on the day that strangers carried off his wealth and foreigners entered his gates and cast lots for Jerusalem, you were like one of them.
And he'll go on to talk about gloating, which we'll get to in a minute. But notice, what was the great sin of the
Edomites? When the attackers came upon Jerusalem, their brother down in the valley, they stood aloof.
They did nothing. They couldn't be touched, they couldn't be bothered. The violence that was done to their brother
Jacob was no concern to them at all. They were aloof from it.
And so God was angry. This I will call the Edomite spirit.
The Edomite spirit does not rescue the innocent. Because what does the innocent one have to do with them?
It's not affecting them. It's not touching them. And so the Edomite is not concerned.
The Edomite spirit is exactly opposite the spirit of our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, in the perfection of the
Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, was complete in heaven and needed nothing. He was untouchable as he always is.
No one can assail him. No one can go to heaven to bring him down.
No one can attack him or harm him in any way, shape, or form. He is complete.
This doctrine is called the Aseity of God. But God is exactly opposite the
Edomite. Seeing you, seeing I, in our sin, in our helplessness, going to be destroyed because of our own sin.
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He left the glory and splendor of heaven, something far greater than what the
Edomites had in the mountains. And he came down and he took on flesh and blood like we have to rescue us from destruction.
We were to be destroyed and yet he interposed on our behalf. All we like sheep had gone astray.
But he came like a lamb led to the slaughter and died the death that we deserved.
He interceded. He did something. He stepped in to rescue us from certain destruction.
And so the Edomite is unconcerned, but our Savior Christ is concerned for sinners.
He is concerned for the vulnerable. And he modeled for us what it is to intercede.
In Isaiah 53, 12 it says, therefore I will divide him a portion with the many.
Speaking of Christ. And he shall divide the spoil with the strong.
Speaking of us. Because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors.
Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors.
I want to be like Christ. I have a long way to go.
And because I was born in 1977 and R .V. Wade was 1973, all
I've ever known is that babies are aborted in the United States of America. But too often,
I have been complacent about that. Whereas Christ modeled for me one who intercedes himself, who goes and even risks his life, giving his life.
How often have I been more like an Edomite, perched on high, seeing this thing happen, but doing nothing.
Now the Edomite sin was even worse than doing nothing. Look at verses 12 to 14.
It says, but do not gloat over the day of your brother in the day of his misfortune.
Do not rejoice over the people of Judah in the day of their ruin.
Do not boast in the day of distress. Do not enter the gate of my people in the day of their calamity.
Do not gloat over his disaster in the day of his calamity.
Do not loot his wealth in the day of his calamity. Do not stand at the crossroads to cut off his fugitives.
Do not hand over his survivors in the day of distress. What we see here, brothers and sisters, is that the
Edomites not only did nothing to help, but they in fact delighted in the death of the innocent.
They lit up the mountains pink. They clapped and they cheered. They celebrated and threw a party for the death of the innocent.
Their brother in Israel. This is a horrifying thing, but it is not gone from the earth.
The last Edomite escaped history in the war of the
Jews in the first century. Herod and his family are some of the last known.
Esau himself, the first of the Edomites, when he realized that his punishment was falling upon him, the
Bible tells us in Hebrews 12, he sought repentance but could not find it, no matter how much he cried.
Why was that? Well, he was lamenting the fact that his reward was taken away, that he didn't get the blessing, but there was no genuine repentance in his heart.
Nothing changed. Esau's heart, the heart of the Edomites, and then the heart of the Herods were all the same, prideful, gloating over the destruction of the innocent.
It's a terrifying thing. Let's see then in verses 15 to 20 the eternal distinction that God makes between Edomites and Israelites, between the house that belongs to God and the house that does not.
It says in verse 15, For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you.
Your deed shall return on your own head. For as you have drunk on my holy mountain, so all the nations shall drink continually.
They shall drink and swallow, and shall be as though they had never been. But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy.
And the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions. And the house of Jacob shall be afire, the house of Joseph aflame, and the house of Esau stubble.
They shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau.
For the Lord has spoken. And he did it in history. The Edomites were destroyed, but the
Israelites continue to this day. And this looks forward to the eternal kingdom where Israel will be established among the nations.
Their present boundaries will be expanded even into Edom. All of these prophecies will come true in the millennium.
Now look at verse 19. Those of the Negev shall possess Mount Esau. And those of the
Shephalah shall possess the land of the Philistines. They shall possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria.
And Benjamin, a tribe of Israel, shall possess Gilead. The exiles of this host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of the
Canaanites as far as Zarephath. And the exiles of Jerusalem, who are in Sepharad, shall possess the cities of the
Negev. So before we close with the last point, notice,
God has made this eternal distinction. The house of Israel, the house of Esau.
Israel will be established. It's the apple of God's eye. The kingdom will be established on earth.
But Esau will be utterly eliminated. This happened in history.
God's judgment fell on this wicked people. God destroyed the
Edomites. But the spirit of the Edomite lives on. The attitude of the heart that has no concern for anybody but oneself.
And if somebody's life does not affect mine, then there is no concern.
This spirit lives on. It even gloats over the death of the innocent. It mocks
Christians who would seek to preserve the life of babies. You can watch videos online of people pleading with women not to abort their babies.
And very often you see those with an Edomite spirit mocking and delighting and shouting their abortion.
In the words of those with the Edomite spirit, they shout their abortion. This goes on in the
United States of America today. It is not a long gone Edomite spirit.
It is alive and well in terms of the attitude of the heart. But I save verse 21 as the main verse
I want to stress today. Because the idea I think we're getting, right?
The Edomite sin is that they did nothing to rescue the innocent. In fact, they did the opposite.
They gloated and they helped cut them off when the fugitives ran out of Israel. The spirit of Christ is to interpose himself.
He is the Savior that comes to the rescue. But look at verse 21. We're told in Obadiah 21,
Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule
Mount Esau and the kingdom shall be the
Lord's. Now the thing most of us probably noticed is that Savior is in the plural there.
Christ is the one and only Savior. He is the Savior. He came to rescue a people like us to be his own possession.
But our text says, Saviors. What's up with that?
Saviors shall go up to Mount Zion. See, the kingdom at the end of verse 21 refers to the mustard seed that was sown into the ground and grew to become the biggest tree.
It refers to the rolling stone of Daniel 2 that crushed the three kingdoms of the earth and then became a mountain that filled the whole earth.
The kingdom is the rule of the Christ. Having died on the cross and risen from the dead, he ascended and he sat down at the right hand of his father in heaven.
From where he rules the world. He is the one who holds the rod in Psalm 2.
He is the Christ and he is the king of kings and lord of lords. Jesus is the
Savior. He has all authority, he says in Matthew 28 verses 18 to 20.
All authority has been given unto me. And so, the kingdom belongs to Christ.
This world is his and he will have dominion over it. As the kingdom spreads like leaven to the ends of the earth.
The kingdom going forth. He uses men and women like us as lower case saviors in the work of God.
In verse 21 it says, saviors shall go up to Mount Zion. Saviors who rescue.
Saviors who interpose for the innocent. When the innocent is being led to the slaughter a savior comes in the spirit of the
Christ. Representing Christ and pleads with that person and rescues the innocent.
I officiated a wedding here yesterday. It was great pomp and circumstance and I have to say that the groom would be the first to tell you that he was rather eccentric.
He came in with a top hat and a cane and he was rocking that and it was great, it was really fun.
But all of his groomsmen had swords at their side which was awesome.
But as I was coming in, one of them whispered to me hey man, sorry we didn't get you a sword.
And I said to him, brother I never go into the pulpit without my sword. Listen, every one of you is equipped with the savior's sword.
The sword that's sharper than any two edged sword. Able to divide the thoughts and intentions of a person's heart and to divide between bone and marrow.
It cuts deep. This here is the word of the living God. Ephesians 6 says it is the sword of the spirit.
We are equipped with the message of the savior. Now listen, he accomplished the work already.
He died the death that we deserve. He was buried. He rose from the dead and you are given this word to go with this sword to proclaim his victory to the ends of the earth.
We have dominion over these streets. It will not be fully experienced until he comes in the flesh and we reign with him.
In the words of Paul to Timothy, if we endure we shall reign with him. That's coming in the kingdom.
The thousand year reign of Christ. Until then we battle for every square inch of territory over this earth.
How do we battle? We proclaim the savior. Savior in the plural in verse 21 of Obadiah refers to this generation.
The kingdom established and growing throughout the earth. Those who will go and preach the message of Jesus Christ.
What happens when you do that? Well in conclusion to my sermon when we preach
Christ hearts are transformed. Even the Edomite spirit that once gloated in the death of the innocent can be cut and changed by the power of the word of God and the
Holy Spirit. We go out preaching people will be saved.
They will be discipled in the word and they will learn to love their children. The hearts of the father will be turned to the children.
God is able to do this through the word. But who will go?
Will you go? Will you be sent? We're going to give you an opportunity to do that.
First I wanted to close with the words and this is amazing. A 13 year old wrote these words.
Someone from this congregation. Now a bit older. She was contemplating the problem of abortion.
And I think she wrote something that's very profound. Let me read it to you. It's a poem. When my mom found out she was to have me
I sensed she did not want this to be. Feelings of much anger and guilt up inside her were built.
Not once did I feel her smile gleam. What does this tragic feeling mean?
Every night she cries her eyes out. I think it was me she was crying about.
Then a terrible thought came into my head as she lay sleeping in bed.
Could the real truth be that my mom does not love and want me? Mom, I'm not just a blob of tissue like you read in that magazine issue.
Though I know, though I now don't look exactly like you, I have arms, legs, feelings and a heartbeat too.
That morning she cried as she talked on the phone and she chewed her nails right down to the bone.
She wrote on a piece of paper a time and a date reassuring the nurse on the other end she won't be late.
When the time came near for us to go, her feelings for me started to show. She said,
I made a mistake in having you but the doctor said it would be quickly through. You must understand that I love you and care, but raising a child is more than I could bear.
As she drove to that horrible place, then I realized I'd never see my mom's face.
And as she signed the papers, I drew my last breath and said, goodbye mom, I wish we could have met.
What I thought was so profound about what this 13 year old wrote is that she understood how conflicted that mother is.
She knew that that mom is torn up and herself destroyed on the inside and what if as she rode up to that clinic, that murder mill, what if there was someone standing there proclaiming, we love you, we will help you, we will do anything to rescue your baby and to help you with anything you need.
That mother might have said yes to life. There is a difference that we can make and we're going to hear about this in just a minute.
We have Brian Oettinger here from Love Life. He's going to share with us. But as we close the sermon, we save communion for now.
Because we realize this, listen, there will be people here and listening who have had an abortion or a man that's encouraged a girlfriend to have an abortion and you need to hear this, that this is not the unforgivable sin.
That the blood of Christ can cover even this. The blood of Christ is powerful enough to cover any sin.
If you repent and turn and through that blood you can be healed and restored.
So here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to ask the ushers if there's any that could grab if you don't yet have the elements.
Raise your hand if you didn't grab it on the way in. I've got to grab mine here. We save communion for the end because I want you to think about this.
Some of the sins that we commit are actually sins of omission, not just sins of commission.
Maybe we have been standing aloof to what's happening in this world. Maybe we haven't done anything to come to the rescue and we all wish we could do more.
We all fall short of his glory. But recognize now as we take communion that we can confess those things to God.
Maybe we need to repent for being apathetic toward the slaughter of the innocents.
If you've had an abortion, repent of that. Believe in the gospel that the blood of Jesus can wash you clean from that sin and make you new.
You can be forgiven. You are forgiven in Christ when you believe in him. This represents that.
Let's take a moment, each of us, to just pray and confess these sins to the
Lord and ask him for forgiveness and cleansing in the name of Jesus. Let's pray.
Just pray on your own. Amen. For I received from the
Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread and you can take the plastic off the top.
There's a small piece of bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body which is for you.
Do this in remembrance of me. And now if you'll take the cup.
In the same way also he took the cup after supper, saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. I'd like to invite the worship team to come forward.
Let's sing a song before we hear from the Love Life guys. Having taken communion, we can have confidence now.
Remembering what Christ has already done once and for all for us. We are reminded of his blood and how our sins are washed away.
And we thank God for it. Let's sing. Stand with us. The mysteries of the cross
I cannot comprehend. The agonies of Calvary.
The perfect holy one who crushed your son.
You drank the bitter cup reserved for me. Your blood has washed away my sin.
Jesus, thank you. The Father's wrath completely satisfied.
Jesus, thank you. Once your enemy was seated at your table.
Jesus, thank you. By your perfect sacrifice,
I've been redeemed. Your glorious grace.
Your mercy, your kindness, there's no end.
Your blood has washed away my sin. Jesus, thank you.
The Father's wrath completely satisfied. Jesus, thank you.
Once your enemy was seated at your table.
Jesus, thank you.
My soul, lover of my soul.
I want to live for you. lover of my soul.
I want to live for you.
My soul, I want to live for you.
Jesus, thank you. Amen. You may be seated.
In January of 2019, I flew down to Atlanta for the G3 Conference.
And it was tons of people there, but I hit it off with one person in particular. His name was
Brian Ottinger. The two of us were hanging out a little bit, got to know each other. Then I came back to New Jersey and one day
I went out to the abortion clinic to try to preach. It was just me, by myself, and prayer walking and trying to speak to the women.
Took my cell phone and videoed myself doing that for a minute. And somehow someone saw that video, was connected with Charlotte, where Brian had become part of a ministry called
Love Life. And when they recommended me talk to Love Life, we found out we already knew each other from Atlanta at the conference.
So God providentially brought us together as friends before bringing us into this fight together.
I want to introduce to you guys Brian Ottinger from Charlotte and the Love Life ministry, brother.
It's a cool story, isn't it? Alright, I thought it was cool. Yeah, I just want to just send some greetings on behalf of my family.
I'm married to a beautiful Colombian woman from South America, Carolina. We have five sons, so she sends us up here.
She's holding down the fort. I'm a pastor of a church called Convergence Church in Charlotte. I'm missing them today, but they've sent me here on behalf of the kingdom of God.
Thank you for allowing me to be here. I want to honor you guys as a church. If it wasn't for your yes to stand up for the word of God and the truth of God, I wouldn't be here.
And I especially want to honor Pastor Jeff and his family. This is your family, right? I haven't met them yet. I'm assuming it is.
You guys are sitting pretty close. But yeah, let's just give it up for Pastor Jeff real quick. Let's honor him.
You know, we're in the last days, and men become lovers of the tickling of their own ears.
We love, our society loves, as he said, the spirit of Edomite. We live in a society of destruction.
So it's encouraging to come up from the Bible Belt to the Northeast, which we consider this the land of the lost.
But we come up here, and we know that there's hope. We know there's a remnant. We know God's still moving in all places in New Jersey, New York, to the ends of the earth.
So I want to ask my son Jake to come up here. This is my oldest son, Jake. He's 17. Y 'all give it up for Jake.
It's a privilege to be able to travel with my son. He's the oldest of my five sons. But I want to share just a personal story.
The Lord saved me radically in 2010. I was 32 years old, and I had a plethora of sin in my past.
I was a radical sinner, I used to tell people. And the Lord saved me, and in an instant I became a radical Christian. And I'd been doing evangelism,
I'd been doing street ministry, I did all kinds of things. Was discipled by some very godly dudes. Ended up feeling the call in my life to become a pastor, and eventually a church planter.
And it was in 2016 that guys started showing up to my church wearing these pretty blue Love Life shirts.
And they're like, hey pastor, you need to come to the prayer walk. And I was like, prayer walk? What is that? Never heard of that. What's the t -shirt thing?
If you guys have a book in your, it's a vision booklet, if you pull that up, you'll see on the first page there, our founder.
I saw the guy who was kind of behind this ministry, and I was like, that's not even a real guy. Like, that looks like a stock photo, you know, when you go to Marshalls, you get the photo frame, you see this fake family.
I was like, that's not even a real person. So I was very skeptical of this ministry called Love Life. And, um, but people kept inviting me out, and they brought me to this week 40 prayer walk.
I think we're going to show you guys a video in a minute where you'll see the masses and multitude of Christians standing outside the abortion center worshiping.
And so I got there and, um, they were preaching the gospel. Check one. They said, this is a ministry that is going to be solved through the local church.
Wow, I'm a pastor. Cool. Check two. Um, they talked about abortion not in a watered down way. They called it murder.
Called it a sin. Check three. Um, they pronounced that Jesus was the only way and the solution to this issue.
Check four. And then the next box that got checked, I didn't even know needed to be checked. Uh, at the time,
Jake was probably 13. And he looked at me that day. I had a couple of my sons with me, and he said, hey dad, have you ever had an abortion?
And I've never been one to hide my past from my kids, and I don't know if it just didn't come out or what, but when he asked me that question,
I began weeping. And he started weeping with me, and he grabbed me, and he was hugging me.
And I realized the box that needed to be checked was I needed some restoration and healing. Theologically, I've been to seminary,
I learned that I was justified by faith alone through grace alone and Christ alone, all that stuff. But man, there's still a part of my heart where I felt like God was angry with me.
And I just didn't feel like he forgave me totally. And so it wasn't until I came face to face with this issue and people speaking about it that it started to really bring healing and restoration to my heart.
And so my family started getting involved. I don't know if you've ever seen those little plastic baby models, the 12 -week babies.
They hand those out at the prayer walks. My little kids would stuff their pockets with them, and we'd come home, and it was like the new toy.
And every time at dinner, my little ones would say, Dad, we've got to make sure we pray for the babies. We can't forget about the babies, my little ones.
And I was like, man, you're right. And Mom That Chose Life ended up becoming discipled in our church.
We began providing for her. We saw the way the gospel was transforming her life. So it not only became a personal issue, but a family issue, but also a church issue.
And then I started coming out to these prayer walks, and next thing you know, you see the Presbyterians next to the
Baptists, next to the non -denomination, next to the Calvinists, next to the Armenian, next to the dudes speaking in tongues, next to, like, all these people
I'd never had ever experienced this stuff. It was really like a true picture of that John 17 unity.
Yeah, we disagree about some secondary and tertiary issues, but I'd really seen the kingdom of God kind of breaking forth here on Earth.
It was powerful. And so, you can go ahead and sit down. Love you, man. Pray for him.
He wants to join the Navy Seals, so pray for him. Pray for his mom. So I want to show you guys a video.
We have a video cued. It's going to put some things in perspective that I'm going to unpack a little bit of the ministry, but I want to if you guys, you know, have somewhere to be or anything like that,
I just want to ask you to cancel your plans. Because at 12 o 'clock here today, we're going to have Dad's Deli, right?
And so we're talking about fathers and fatherhood, but, you know, we're going to eat some Dad's Deli and have an informational meeting and a prayer meeting afterwards, but if you'll go ahead and roll this video, then
I'll explain a little bit afterwards. What God started here five years ago is now spreading across this nation and around the world.
We declare life over every person who will be driving this place today. We pray right now for those that are in this place that are making decisions of life and death.
God, we speak life right now. We're not waiting on politicians to change the culture.
The Church of Jesus Christ can change the culture towards love and towards life.
I've called you to the least of these. I've called you to be a voice to the voiceless. Lord, thank you so much for the opportunity that you have given us, that you have entrusted us to be here, to be that light that you've called us to be.
This morning we gather in Charlotte, but they're gathering in Greenwich City and four new cities,
Bronx, Georgia, and let me tell you that this is just the beginning,
Church. This is just the beginning. I'm so thankful to the soldiers of Jesus who were there that day.
Not only did they save her life, but they saved mine, too. So that's baby
Nazareth on the front of the book, and she's one of 3 ,200 babies who've been saved over the past five years.
We're not one of those ministries that pads stats. Some ministries that's, you know, I'm a pastor of a church plant, it's like, we've got 7 ,000 people baptized this year.
We're evangelistic, but as a pastor, we do that sometimes. We don't do that as a ministry. We literally count the moms and dads who choose life and confirm it to us, and our goal is not just that they would choose life, but that they would hear the hope of the gospel and then receive the help of the local church.
Baby Nazi's mom, she has been discipled. She's been mentored. She's been walked alongside with.
She is now a professing believer of Jesus, and she now stands with us at the gates of hell, calling out to other moms, saying,
Mom, there is hope for you. There is help for you. So let me tell you really quick about the vision, the mission of Love Life.
We are uniting and mobilizing the church to create a culture of love and life that will bring an end to abortion and orphan crisis in our land, but to sum it up in one word, it's repentance.
It's repentance. The next slide will say that this is not a political issue.
Yes, praise God when there's righteous politicians which stand in place. Maybe some of you guys one day will be a righteous politician.
We praise God for that, but this is not going to get solved through politics. This is not going to get solved through government assistance.
This is going to get solved by the church of Jesus Christ taking her rightful place at the gates of hell, saying,
Mama, we're here to help you. Your baby is not a burden. Your baby is a blessing. Your baby was created in the image of God.
No matter what you're going through, we're here to open you, or welcome you in with open arms. We're here to provide for you whatever you need.
Please do not murder your child today. We're not going to affirm that what they're doing is good, and we're not going to condemn them to hell, but we're going to offer them the hope of the gospel and the help of the local church.
It's our issue, church. We are the ones that have the power of the gospel.
We are the ones that have the power of the Holy Spirit. We are the ones, as Brother said, we have the sword of the
Spirit. Amen? And a lot of us have never unsheathed it.
We've learned, it's like we're sitting in church week in and week out. We've learned how to sharpen the sword. We've learned how to fight with it, but we've never actually taken our place in battle.
And so what I want to tell you is everybody can do something. I want to bring up Jonathan Leonard from y 'all's church.
I want to bring up Sarah Bakey, who's a missionary in Pennsylvania, Carla Diaz. She's a missionary in Central Pennsylvania.
Sarah spent some time in Israel. A few guys will come up. Not all of you guys have been called to what they did.
Jonathan, if you didn't know, came down to Charlotte a couple months ago and said, I want to be a voice for the voiceless. I want to help rally the church in South Jersey and in Philly.
And the goal is this. Listen, there's 700 abortion centers in the United States. 700.
And our goal at Love Life is we want to unite and mobilize the church so that there's a Christian presence at every abortion center every time they're open doing abortions.
The statistic from Care Net says 90 % of moms who choose life, those that were headed to have an abortion, and they end up choosing life, say they did so.
Why? Because someone was present. Now we don't think, if you didn't know this, there's atheist pro -life groups.
We don't think it's their job to be there. We praise God that Catholics have been out there, but we don't think it's their job.
We don't think it's the Mormon's job. We don't think it's Joe Biden's job. We think it's our job, the people who have the gospel of Jesus Christ, empowered by the
Spirit, to be the ones truly offering the hope of Jesus. Amen? And so we can all do something.
So how do we do that? Well, we train people how to love people with the message of the gospel.
You've heard it said that truth without love is not truth. Love without truth is not love. So we're teaching people how to be truthful and loving.
We're teaching the church, not just Cornerstone. The gates of hell won't prevail against Cornerstone.
No, the gates of hell won't prevail against the church. So we need to rally a collective church in this area.
Because listen, as you guys start going out and doing this, a couple things are going to happen. One is you're going to be spiritually attacked and you're going to grow spiritually.
The second is moms and dads will choose life because many of them just need someone to come look them in the eyes and say, we're here to help.
You don't have to do this. We want to walk with you. And they hear those words. It clicks, they break down and cry and they open their arms up and they come right in.
And so, that's the second thing. The third thing that will happen is people will get saved. People will get ushered from darkness to light.
And this church can't handle that on its own. No offense to you guys. But there's a lot of lost people who are going to the abortion centers who need our help.
And as we go out in the power of the gospel, we should believe that God's going to work. If you're going to go knock on doors in a neighborhood, you should believe that God's going to save people.
So we need the collective church in this area to come on board. So we do a 40 -week Journey of Hope in our partnering cities from basically
February to November. And we're asking churches to come out every single Saturday. So what you guys are going to do this week is a preview of that.
You guys are going to get a preview of what it could look like to have love life in your city. Our goal next year really is that if by God's gracious and His wisdom that He would rally the church in this area, that there could be a love life prayer walk every week.
Everyone can pray, right? Everyone can walk. Everyone can show up. So everyone can be there.
But I want to let Sarah tell a little bit of her story. I heard this is a pro -Israel church. Right? You guys are biblical.
And so Sarah has spent some time in Israel. She was our first tenured missionary, our longest tenured missionary.
She started in New York City when Governor Cuomo passed the Reproductive Health Act.
Her and a girl named Natalie said, Hey, we've got to do something about this. They went to the head of the snake, which is the
Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood in Bleeker and Mott in Manhattan. They started going out there. And by God's grace,
I think there's over 100 babies that have been saved since they went out. 150? Praise God.
And then she felt God call her to Israel, and I'm going to let her tell some of that story. And then just due to some restrictions and stuff, she's been back for a season, which providentially
God opened the door for her and Carla Diaz, who are in the Lancaster, Harrisburg, York area.
Of course, y 'all know Jonathan. But I want to give Sarah a couple minutes just to talk about how this ministry's impacted her and how she's seen
God work. Thank you, guys. It's a blessing to be here this morning.
Like Brian said, my name is Sarah. I'm originally from New York City, and I got involved in pro -life work when they passed the nine -month abortion law in New York.
And I remember the day it happened. I saw it via social media, and me and my best friends, she actually sent it to me.
And we actually, just a few weeks after that, there was a big rally planned in Albany called the Day of Mourning, and it was put on by this lady named
Elizabeth Johnson, and several thousand believers across denominational lines came and gathered in Albany in the same building where Cuomo passed the bill.
It was right underneath it. And we had three hours of prayer and worship and repentance, and it was in that service where actually
Justin Reeder, the founder of Love Life, spoke. And he came and shared at the time, I think Love Life was only in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Greensboro.
Over the past year and a half, they've expanded tremendously. But at that point, it was still quite small. But he came and he shared that the night before the rally, him and his friend, one of the
Benham brothers, had gone to the Margaret Sanger plant parent in Manhattan and had walked around and prayed, shared a bit about what
Love Life does, and then actually Mama Izzy and Nazzy, her baby that was on that video, were also there, and she came out at that point.
Nazzy was just a little baby. And it struck me so deeply that because the presence of the church was there, that baby was alive today.
And it just, it was like, it was suddenly like my, like a veil was lifted, and those whole three hours was like,
I couldn't stop crying. And it wasn't just emotionalism. There's a lot of emotionalism we can go through, up and down.
But it was a day that truly changed the whole direction of my life, because the Lord gave me a burden for a cause.
And I know that day, the Lord told me, I want you to co -labor with me in this, in bringing this to an end. And so when
Justin spoke and said he had gone to pray at the Margaret Sanger plant parent, I told my friend, we're going to go there every evening, and we're going to walk around and pray and see what happens.
Sorry, every Friday evening. Every Friday evening. So, we started going every Friday evening, and fast forward, we ended up meeting
Justin Reeder through our church that we were attending at the time in Manhattan, my friend and I. And they said they were bringing
Love Life to New York, and then they started training us, and we started helping them launch it in New York City. So that was 2019.
So I've been with Love Life a bit over two years now. Last year, I headed out to Israel, actually for mission purposes that were actually separate from pro -life work, but I knew
God was calling me to this as well, and so I went in obedience to what I felt the Lord had been calling me to do for several years, to go to the
Middle East. And then during last year, the Lord ended up just uniting these two
Middle East and pro -life together. When Justin started Love Life, he actually felt the
Lord put it on his heart to bring the vision to Israel. Abortion is legal up until nine months in Israel.
Many people know it as the Holy Land, but it is not a moral country. Their laws are not moral.
They estimate around 50 ,000 abortions a year, which is higher than Charlotte's numbers. Israel's about the size of your state,
New Jersey. So it's a country about the size of your state. So it is a big issue over there. We have worked with pro -life ministries in Israel with congregations over there, sharing the vision with them, and Lord willing, the
Lord will continue that work. At this time, Karl and I are leading up Love Life in central PA. We counsel in York and in Harrisburg, and we're working on doing what we're doing here today, gathering churches, mobilizing the body, bringing awareness and bringing education, and getting the body of Christ to come out to these cities to rebuild.
The past two years have been honestly the best years of my life. We have seen God move in tremendous waves.
We've seen over 150 babies saved in New York. I've seen God do things in Israel. We're seeing the Lord do things. We had about 70 people come out last
Saturday in PA in York to pray, including many children, six churches represented. And I'll just leave you with this.
Francis Schaeffer once said, every abortion center remains open with a sign over the door saying, we are open by permission of the church.
Because we have the power to bring it to an end. Not because of who we are, but because Christ dwells in us.
And we're living in some dark, dark times, and I just want to encourage you, really encourage you and exhort you, give your time to something that eternally matters.
Because your life is so short, and an hour and a half on a Saturday, it's like nothing.
It's nothing. And if you can do an hour and a half on a Saturday, I'm telling you, the joy that you'll get from that time, you're going to a dark place, but the joy that will remain with you knowing you stood in the gap for people who have no voice.
And not only that, but you've honored God with your time, and he's so pleased with what we're doing. I'm telling you, it's like nothing you'll ever experience.
It's like nothing, nothing can bring you as much joy as putting your hands to the plow of an eternal work.
And so I just want to leave you with that. Live for something that's eternal. Let's give it up for these guys.
Thank you. It's so powerful to see people say yes to God, and just see what happens.
So the question I was kind of confronted with is, do I live the kind of life that's dependent on the
Spirit of God? Like, do I need God to live, or is my life comfortable? Kind of like, you know, the Edomites.
They had their stuff. They were good. And that's the call of God. It's like, we've got to get out of the comfort zone.
We've got to go into the places. When God uses the example, when they say, hey, Jesus, what's the greatest commandment?
You've heard it said, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, than to love your neighbor as yourself. They said, well, who's your neighbor?
And he gives the example of a guy who was left for dead in a ditch. He could have gave any example.
But a guy who nobody wanted to minister to. I mean, if we saw a guy who was bloody left for dead in a ditch, it's not my natural tendency to want to pull over and put him in my car, because I'm thinking about scrubbing my car clean, and all the diseases, and how much it's just going to cost me.
But this is literally Jesus' example. And it was a Samaritan ministering to a guy coming from Jerusalem.
So this was a guy who probably wasn't, you know, his friend. They had odds and enmity with each other culturally.
But he picked him up. He took him. He bandaged him up. He spent his money on him. Put oils on him.
And then he took him to the end. He didn't just drop him off. He paid for his stuff and said, I'm coming back. So this is discipleship.
There's no other places in our city, in our country, where we see people in the ditch like the abortion center.
You know, we live in the whole George Floyd era. It's tragic that he died.
But if we knew where the next George Floyd situation was, or the next Columbine school shooting, we would show up in droves and say, this cannot happen.
But we know in 700 places in America where innocent children are scheduled to die, and people think that's the only option.
So we must show up, church. Well, how do we do that? We're trying to create a culture shift from this
Edomite to the Obadiah spirit, culture of death to a culture of life. We have to understand that 17 ,000 babies are killed weekly.
Abortion is allowed up to birth in some states. One in four men and women, not just outside the church, but inside the church, have a personal experience with abortion.
So I want to just stop for a second there and say, this is not a ministry of shame and condemnation.
As I've shared earlier, I'm a post -aborted father. And so if you have abortion in your past, if you've been involved in it in any way, shape, or form, like Pastor said earlier, it's not the unforgivable sin.
God's grace is extended to you today. He wants to heal you and set you free from that past hurt, from that shame.
I don't know where you're at. I don't know. One in four, right? There's at least 100 people in here. So the odds are, the estimate, that 25 of us in this room have some sort of responsibility when it comes to abortion.
God wants to set you free. God wants to heal you and restore you. So we're trying to create a culture where we talk about this stuff.
We've seen in other cities legit, expositional, sound doctrinal pastors, their kids have had abortions because they didn't feel like they could bring it to their father.
They didn't feel like they could bring it to the church because they felt like they'd be shamed. Now, I'm not advocating for a promiscuous lifestyle.
It might be a sin that led you to get pregnant, but being pregnant is not a sin. So we're trying to talk about this stuff in our church because we don't think that you fix one sin with another sin.
People get pregnant. People do sin. Instead of saying, shaming them and whatever, we're saying, no, come to us.
We're trying to create a culture where people stop running to the abortion center, start knowing that the church is a place where lost, hurting, and broken people can come and receive the grace of God.
One quick story. At our abortion center in Charlotte, North Carolina, we have people out there.
Every day it's open. We have a team of people. So we have a reputation. Three years ago, a mother came.
She was met by our counselors. They petitioned. They pled with her, and she still wouldn't have her abortion.
It's horrible. They never saw her again until about two months ago. She comes back to the abortion center because she's pregnant.
This time, she's not looking for abortion, but she's looking for help from the church. Literally, in our city, people are coming to the abortion centers because they know that the church is going to be there to help them.
Our goal is that we're trying to rally and unite the church in South Jersey, in Philadelphia, to go to these dark places and shine the light.
Darkness exists. Why? The absence of light. We have the light of Jesus. We need to take it to these places.
So here's what we're going to do this week. This is the adoption week. The Sunday is we hear.
We've heard what God is doing in the land. We've heard the tragic truth, but we know that God's grace is greater than all the sin, even the sin of abortion.
We've heard about it, but it's not enough just to be aware. If my son wanted to learn how to play baseball, and we sat in my living room for four hours and watched
YouTube videos on how to play baseball, and I said, alright, man, that's it. What I've taught him is it's okay to learn about something, but never actually apply himself.
So we're trying to give you guys some tracks you can run on. And here's the tracks. This Wednesday, as a church, you guys are going to pray, and you're going to fast together.
I'm not trying to shame anybody here. You can tell I probably need to be fasting a little more in my life. But some of us have never fasted before.
Or we don't like fasting, right? Because we like food. Raise your hand if you like food. Okay, everyone, right?
So we don't like that. But fasting is not just giving up food. It's saying, God, I want more of you.
I'm giving up something for you, Lord. And we're asking the Lord to do what only He can do. Only God can change the hearts of an aborted -minded mom or dad.
You can't. I can't. But God can. And so on Wednesday, we're united in prayer and fasting. In the cities where we're committed to prayer and fasting, we've seen a 70 % decrease in abortions.
70%. One of our cities, Greensboro, they shut down the abortion center on Wednesday because they ran out of business. Seriously. That's crazy.
And yes, it's a business. It's a business to them. They charge $500 per baby. They don't want us out there.
We're bad for business. But we know that these lives are precious to God. And so the question I want to ask you as we think about praying and fasting is, do you believe in the power of God for prayer?
Like, truly. Like, every Christian should be like, yeah, yes, I'm nodding my head. But when
I heard about this fasting and praying piece, I'm like, that's all you're doing? And the city director in Charlotte in front of me said, hey,
Pastor Brian, do you really believe in the power of God through prayer and fasting? And the reality was, I didn't.
Because I felt like God needed me to do more. I've got to do stuff in addition to this. And yeah, we should do more, right? But prayer is the greater work,
Oswald Chambers says. It's so hard to pray. Even when Jesus asked them to pray, what didn't they do? They didn't pray.
He said, you couldn't even sit here and pray. You fell asleep. Praying's tough. It's a tough work. It's the greater work.
We're petitioning the God of heaven to bring down his kingdom here on earth. And then after we pray, what do we do?
We go. Raise your hand if you've ever been on an international mission trip. Where'd you go?
Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic? I've been there for a vacation. Alright.
Any harder places than that? I'm just kidding. Like, I've been to India. And I watched a cow graze in a, uh, just trash heap.
Just a cow grazing. They don't have, like, grass over there, so literally a cow was grazing in trash heap. I saw a naked kid who was about 10 years old run up to my car and ask me for money as I watched his handler trying to, like, persuade him to give me money.
Like, this stuff breaks my heart. And I can say that because I've been there. And for you guys, it's like, yeah, that story's sad, but until you've experienced that kind of atrocity, man, like, it changes things.
Just like when Justin got invited. I got invited. Jeff, you can't unsee or experience what you felt that day.
And so we want to bring you guys out. We want you to experience this issue of abortion, not to shame or condemn anyone, but we want to take it from the theoretical
Facebook debate world, or the every four years I'm going to vote for a pro -life politician world, to hey,
I'm the church, and I've come face -to -face with the reality of abortion. And then your heart's going to break, and you're going to say, what can
I do more, which is the fourth piece, our connect piece. We want to get you plugged into restoration, if you have abortion in your past.
You know, we should care about kids outside the womb just as much as we care about kids in the womb, so God's adopted us as his father.
We want to plug people into foster care and adoption. Matthew 28, Jesus, all authority's been given to him.
Why? So that we'll make disciples. So if moms and dads want to be discipled, we want to help train and equip you guys to help disciple them.
And then last is, hey, if you want to be the person who's on the sidewalk, like, we want to teach you how to winsomely preach the truth in love.
And we got people on our staff that have been doing this stuff for decades. They're really good at it. So we want to help equip you.
You know, the pastor's job is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. I'm still a pastor for my local church, but I see myself as almost a pastor to the bigger church.
I'm helping pastors equip their churches. You guys will be the church in this area who's pioneering love life to help other churches get activated and mobilized for this mission.
So give yourselves a round of applause in advance. Give God a round of applause. Alright. And I'm going to end with this.
It's not enough to just say, hey, that was cool. But we want you to commit. We want you to come out.
So if you turn in your book, I think they're going to put it on the screen. I'm like, I'm 43, so I'm kind of old school.
If you pull your phone out and you scan this, it's called a QR code. And what happens is you can try it if you've never done this before.
Pull your phone out and you point it at the screen and a link will pop up. And that'll be a digital way that you can commit to coming out this week, to fasting and praying, to showing up at the prayer walk.
And then if you're really old school and you like pen and paper, on the back of that card, there's a commitment card.
But I'm asking Pastor Jeff to lead the charge for that. And again, just thank you guys for the awesome ability to be here.
You guys saying yes to these babies. God will save babies. His kingdom will advance through you. So thank you very much.
Amen. Give him a hand clap, guys. All right.
Before the benediction, I'm going to pray. And after I pray, I'm going to ask you to raise your card up if you're willing to come
Saturday. Okay? After we dismiss here, we have some sandwiches.
Now, if you're about to go home, and you're not going to stay here, don't take a sandwich and run.
That's not approved. The sandwiches are in case you're going to stay here from 12 to 1. We're going to ask questions, get our questions on the table, and then we'll be out of here.
All right? So I'm going to pray, and then I'm going to ask you if you're going to be here on Saturday. It's okay.
Not everybody's called to it, but if the Lord is prompting your heart to be part of this, we need you.
Father, we thank you so much for what you are doing here today. We know that your spirit is moving.
We don't need to conjure things up or make things happen or try to manipulate or get emotional.
Lord, what we need is for you to do a work in our hearts, for you to speak to us and for us to obey.
So we thank you for what you're doing. We ask that you would do mighty things through this ministry, that many babies would be saved, women that are restored and men restored, becoming disciples of Christ.
We pray that you would do this for your namesake, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Now, if you are going to be here on Saturday, I just want to just see.
Give me a little oh, awesome. We're going to have a squad out there for the first day. Look at that. Praise God.
That is awesome. All right. Let me finish with the benediction, and then you are dismissed from the book of Jude.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.
To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.