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[0:00] It's a little bit of a heavy morning reading that letter from Pastor Marv. You know, that rascal has been threatening to retire for the last three or four years.

[0:15] And he finally decided to do it. And I'm grateful that, you know, he'll get an opportunity to settle down a little bit.

[0:29] He's been doing this a long time. And he's not going anywhere. Well, he won't be here this month.

[0:39] But anyway, I'm so grateful for this church, this body, and specifically really for him.

[0:50] He's been such a blessing, I know, to many of you. But to me also, we've been at this church for, I think it's over five years now. And these last five years, this church has been such a tremendous blessing to us and our family.

[1:07] Pastor Marv particularly, to me. So, so grateful for him. Um, we're our family just got finished with a musical production.

[1:22] Down in Wilmington. That we've been practicing the last six weeks weeks for and on Friday and Saturday, we did the performance and some of you were there. Thank you for, thank you for coming.

[1:32] But I'm still a little hyped up. Uh, Jamie had me singing and dancing and doing all kinds of things. It's last week. So, if I just start breaking out into song in the middle of this message, I apologize.

[1:49] Uh, these songs are still stuck in my head. If I start dancing on this platform, somebody just come up and tackle me. Um, I hope I can control myself.

[2:02] John? So this morning, um, I wanted to bring a message about, uh, some of the recent happenings in our country, specifically two, not even two weeks ago.

[2:18] Just barely a week ago, right? Friday, June 24th, I think was the date, that something momentous happened in this country with this Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade.

[2:32] And that decision that has been on the books, if you will, a ruling that came out in 1973, has been on the books for almost 50 years.

[2:45] And it's been a horrific stain on this country. We got to sing this morning about America. What a beautiful country. But she hasn't always been beautiful.

[2:59] But we want her to be beautiful, don't we? We want to get rid of those stains as much as we can. And America has not always been perfect.

[3:10] Sometimes we think, well, back in the good old days. And there never really was any good old days, was there? There's always been some kind of stain on our country and any nation, really.

[3:25] But we would hope that we're always striving as a people, especially as Christian people, to work to improve. In fact, this song, America the Beautiful, I think it was the second verse.

[3:40] What was the number? 799? 899? I'll just look this up real quick. Because one of those verses just spoke out. And it's verse 2, the third line there.

[3:55] It says, America, America, God mend thy every flaw. And that decision that came out, I think, was contributing, working on mending that flaw that has been a flaw in our nation for almost 50 years.

[4:16] Speaking of this church, sometimes people say, well, you shouldn't talk about these highly political issues in church. It's not a good idea.

[4:28] You should avoid these kinds of subjects. When we first came to Grace Bible Church about five years ago, one of the reasons we stuck around, I remember coming to church, and we really liked the Bible teaching and all that.

[4:42] But I remember driving home the first day we came to visit, or maybe it was that weekend anyway, in the Springfield area, and I saw this big billboard on the side of the road.

[4:54] And it was a picture of an eagle and some eggs. And I can't remember the exact words. Actually, I think there's a picture of it in the hallway. Is there? It's still there.

[5:05] Do you remember, Caleb? David, what are the words? There are thousands of fines for disrupting an eagle or its nest or eggs, but no laws against little newborn babies.

[5:22] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we have laws to protect eagle eggs, right? Unborn eagles, if you will. But we don't have protections for unborn little baby boys and girls.

[5:34] And we hope that changes. Now, the Supreme Court decision that just came down, it did two things.

[5:47] It says this Roe v. Wade decision is overturned. And that is tremendous. That's great. The Roe v. Wade said that it's a requirement, basically, to allow legal abortion.

[6:04] The next thing that it said is that we return the right. Let me actually read it here. If I have it, do I have it?

[6:20] Here it is. The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey are overruled. Praise the Lord. And then it says this, and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.

[6:40] So we have Roe v. Wade overturned. And then the decision on whether it's okay to commit acts of violence against unborn children is returned to the people.

[6:52] That we still need to work on in this country. Giving to the people, the states, elected representatives, the opportunity to regulate whether we commit acts of violence against little baby boys and girls is not something that we should put in the hands of anyone.

[7:10] Because God has taken it out of our hands, hasn't he? And that's what we're going to get into this morning. Really, even as a nation, we have such a tremendous history with the founding of our country.

[7:28] So many of our founders were Christians. Not all. Most of them were religious to some degree. Many deists and things like that. But many Christians as well.

[7:38] And we have one part of our founding creed. And what is that?

[7:48] There's a document that is kind of considered the creed of America. What is that? The Declaration of Independence. The Declaration.

[8:00] Has anybody remembered or memorized any of the Declaration of Independence before? Yeah. And it says this. We, the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union.

[8:14] Let's see if I can remember. Establish justice. Ensure domestic tranquility. Provide for the common defense. I'll kind of skip past that part. But it says this in the Declaration.

[8:27] That we hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal. And that they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights.

[8:42] Rights that you can't take away. Rights that come from the government? No. Rights that come, that are endowed by our creator, the one who created us.

[8:54] That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Right there. Among these are life. Life. We have a right to life endowed to us.

[9:05] Not by judges. Not by legislatures. Not by any other rulers. Endowed by our creator. And God holds the right to the right to life.

[9:21] He doesn't allow governments to decide whether they want to allow people to live or not. Innocent people anyway. And we'll talk about that more in a moment. But in this country, not only do we have that founding creed, which some people would say, well, that doesn't have any legal standing.

[9:39] But right there in our Constitution, we have these things called amendments. And let me read a couple of them to you. The Fifth Amendment says this.

[9:51] And I'm going to start in the middle. But it says, nor shall a person be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The right to life is right there in the Fifth Amendment.

[10:05] And then in the Fourteenth Amendment. Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Right there.

[10:16] So even in our own documents, our nation, at every level, from the top down, has an obligation, not only before God, which is the most important, isn't it?

[10:29] But also, by our own Constitution, has an obligation to defend every person's right to life.

[10:43] And with this overturning of Roe v. Wade, we can't stop there. We need to keep moving forward. Keep pushing forward. Keep pushing our legislators and those other rulers and our governments at any level, whether it's the federal government or here in the state of Ohio.

[11:04] With all that's been going on, there's been lots of protests and chatter on social media. And a lot of the same kind of arguments come up about why we should allow abortion violence in this country.

[11:18] And whenever I talk about abortion, I always like to include the word violence because that's what abortion is. It's an act of violence.

[11:31] And we need to make sure that we always tie that with that word abortion. But we hear the things, my body, my choice. Oh, these are just men wanting to control women.

[11:43] Every child should just be a wanted child. That sounds virtuous, doesn't it? Every child a wanted child. But what's the opposite side of that?

[11:55] Well, if you're an unwanted child, then we'll get rid of you. Quality of life arguments. There are even religious arguments. There are even religious arguments.

[12:05] From whether it be kind of more leftward-leaning Jews or even leftward-leaning Christians. About, well, life doesn't actually start until a baby takes their first breath.

[12:22] Is that true? Does the Bible say anything about that? So let's ask a question. What is abortion? What is this thing that we're constantly talking about in our nation that is so controversial?

[12:35] What is abortion? I've got a definition here from the dictionary. The dictionary says this. Abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy.

[12:46] The deliberate termination of a pregnancy. Is that an accurate definition? Well, let me ask this.

[13:00] What is, let's say, a woman needs a C-section. And so she goes to the hospital. Or maybe just needs to be induced, right?

[13:13] Sometimes, in fact, we had this with our son. We scheduled for him to be induced this last October. And so we had a deliberate end.

[13:26] That's what termination means. A deliberate end of a pregnancy. We scheduled it. We scheduled the end of the pregnancy, right? The pregnancy came to an end because we had a birth.

[13:38] And that's what birth is. Birth is the end of a pregnancy. But is that what abortion is? No. No. Abortion is much more than that.

[13:50] But don't we find this interesting? We see this a lot today, don't we? That words, they should mean things. But there's opportunities, right, when you control the language and change.

[14:04] The definitions of words. We see that today. You know, a lot of people are asking today, what is a woman? Right? Anybody, you've seen all this going around, right?

[14:15] There's a documentary out there that a guy named Matt Walsh put out. And it's just fascinating. The number of people there that don't know how to define a woman. In fact, this latest justice on the Supreme Court was asked this by a senator or a congresswoman.

[14:31] And she said she was not a biologist. So she couldn't answer the question of what is a woman? Why are so many people wanting to redefine or maybe just add ambiguity to words?

[14:46] Well, because it's helpful to the cause that they're promoting or pursuing. Same thing with abortion practice. The true definition of abortion is this.

[15:00] It's the intentional killing of an unborn human being. That's what it is. The intentional killing of an unborn human being. So with that definition established, why is abortion wrong?

[15:20] Some people say, well, abortion, it's a complex issue. There's lots of ambiguity. There's nuance involved.

[15:33] You know, some issues are complicated and they involve nuance, especially in the details. But I have a quote here from, in fact, this word nuance and complexity came up.

[15:49] I was discussing some things on social media and a friend of mine from high school started engaging in conversation. And these are some words that he used. And he has a Catholic upbringing.

[16:02] But he used the word nuance and complex in our discussion. This is a quote from G.K. Chesterton. And Chesterton is very quotable. He's got a lot of great quotes.

[16:13] He says this. He said, moral issues are always terribly complex for someone without principles. Moral issues are black and white.

[16:29] There's right and there's wrong. And yes, there can be some difficulties. But when it comes to this issue, it's not really that complicated.

[16:44] There's two kind of points I'd like to consider and present this morning on why abortion is wrong. Number one, and this is in the form of a syllogism.

[16:54] Anybody ever studied logic? A syllogism. Two points. One, the unborn child is a human being. Is that true?

[17:06] Okay. Two, it's always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. Is that true?

[17:17] Two, let's dig into those further. So the first one, the unborn child is a human being. Is this really controversial?

[17:31] No. You open up any textbook, a biology textbook, is that what they're going to say? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, I won't, I'm sure there are people who may be trying to change things.

[17:47] In fact, I have read some people trying to change the definition of conception, that's a medical term, conception, to be something other than fertilization.

[18:00] Something more like implantation or something like that. But especially in this age of science, we have all this scientific understanding. We can look at human cells or any cells under a microscope and see what's going on.

[18:15] You can look at a model of what DNA looks like, this tiny little thing made of these tiny little molecules. And science tells us that a new human being, a new human life, begins that very instant that that little seed and that egg unite.

[18:40] An entirely new being is formed with distinct and unique DNA. DNA is your instructions that make you up.

[18:51] The color of your eyes, the color of your hair, how tall you're going to be, these kinds of things. And so science tells us when human life begins.

[19:05] Here's a quote from the American College of Pediatrics. They say this, The predominance of human biological research confirms that human life begins at conception. Fertilization.

[19:18] Conception slash fertilization. At fertilization, the human being emerges as a whole, genetically distinct, individuated, zygotic, living human organism.

[19:32] A member of the species, homo sapiens, needing only the proper environment in order to grow and develop. The difference between the individual in its adult stage and its zygotic stage is one of form and not in nature.

[19:49] So it's saying, at its very fundamental level, human life begins at that moment of conception or that moment of fertilization. But some people say, well, that is true.

[20:02] A human being is defined, you know, at that very moment of fertilization. But when does that human being become a person? Well, some say, well, the human being becomes a person at birth.

[20:23] Okay. Some say, well, that becomes a human being or a human being becomes a person at the age of viability. Anybody ever heard that term?

[20:33] Viability. That just means the age at which a little baby boy or girl can survive outside of the womb, which is about what these days? It keeps getting younger and younger, right?

[20:45] Which is tremendous that we're able to save little baby boys and girls at these when they're so tiny. I think it's about 21 weeks, something like that.

[20:56] And they're so, there's so little tiny, these tiny little baby boys and girls. But many of them were able to save even at that young age. It's tremendous. So at viability.

[21:08] But is there any reasoning behind these? Why would we consider a human being only to become a person at these different stages? Is there a huge difference that happens between when the baby is in the womb and the six or seven inches to leaving the womb?

[21:29] Is there a change that happens? Is there some magic that happens? No. Personhood is the same as when life begins.

[21:44] As soon as life begins, you are a person. You are a unique individual. Any other demarcation is completely arbitrary.

[21:56] Does the Bible say anything about whether babies in the womb are people? Whether they're human beings? Let's look.

[22:07] If you have a Bible, let's look at Luke. Luke chapter 1.

[22:20] We're going to read about a baby. This is about a baby whose ultimately his name was John.

[22:37] Later on, he liked to sprinkle or, for our Baptist friends, dunk people in water. So he became known as John the Baptizer, John the Baptist.

[22:50] And it says this in verse, let's see. Verse 13.

[23:02] Chapter 1, verse 13. But the angel said to him, Do not be afraid, Zacharias, for your prayer is heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. Verse 14. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth.

[23:15] Verse 15. Here's the meat. For he will be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink. He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb.

[23:27] From his mother's womb, inside of mom's womb, he'll be filled with the Holy Spirit. We move on down to verse 44.

[23:41] Verse 44. And this is Elizabeth. Mary's coming to visit Elizabeth.

[23:56] And let's start with verse 42. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. She's blessing the fruit of her womb.

[24:09] Do we bless? She's blessing a person, isn't she? Verse 43. But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? And then she says this. For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

[24:27] That little baby leaped for joy. Only a person can have joy. Right? And so this little baby in Elizabeth's womb, there was something going on in there.

[24:45] This little tiny person. Really small, tiny. We don't know how far along she was. Maybe we do, but I don't know at this time. But this little tiny baby in her womb leapt for joy.

[24:57] Because there was something. This baby was filled with the Holy Spirit. And there was a sense that this baby had that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, was nearby.

[25:09] And there was a reaction. There are many other scriptures. I'll just reference them. Rebecca. She had twins, didn't she?

[25:22] Genesis 25, 22, it says this. Rebecca, his wife, conceived. And the children, who were her children, Jacob and Esau, they struggled together within her. They struggled.

[25:35] These two boys. In Jeremiah 1, 5, the Lord says about Jeremiah, he says, Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

[25:45] Before I formed you in the womb. You know, God designed the whole development process in the womb. And in the Psalms, and I don't have the reference here, but in the Psalms, there's this description of the development of the womb.

[25:58] And it talks about God designing the sinews and all these parts of development as the baby grows in the womb. And God designed all that. And so as this process is happening with Jeremiah, as he's growing in the womb, as God designed it, God knew him.

[26:17] He knew him. So the Bible indicates that little baby boys and girls in the womb are people. That he loves, that he knows, that he can fill with his spirit.

[26:32] Let's look at the second part of this syllogism. It's always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being. That's speaking to the right to life.

[26:43] So let's focus on this one thing. It's wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. People don't like those kinds of black and white words today. That's a moral claim.

[26:56] Something is wrong. And there's a lot of people that would like to get rid of these black and white moral claims. It doesn't say it's, the syllogism doesn't say, well, it's preferable.

[27:10] We prefer, we prefer not to intentionally kill an innocent human being. That's not what it is. It's wrong. 100% wrong. Then we said, it's always wrong.

[27:23] Always. And that's where the rub is. Because I think most people will say, in general, it's wrong to kill an innocent human being.

[27:35] Right? In general, it's a bad idea. But there are exceptions. And we've seen that not just in America with abortion, but we've seen it throughout all of history.

[27:49] Well, we should respect people's lives. Well, except maybe those people. Because they're not really full human beings.

[28:01] We look at Germany in the 1930s and 40s. And these Jews, well, we can make an exception for the Jews.

[28:13] Right? They're just troublemakers. They're just in the same way. Or even in this country. We had the Dred Scott decision.

[28:25] Is this black man, Dred Scott, is he really a person? No, we have to make an exception for him because of his skin color or where he comes from.

[28:37] We see this throughout all of history. And for those who want to justify their actions in getting rid of people that they don't like, we'll make exceptions.

[28:52] It's exceptions for, we want a right to life except, well, what if you're not wanted? Maybe we can make an exception for that. Or what if you're disabled and you're really difficult to care for?

[29:05] Maybe we can make an exception for that. Or what if you're just not very useful to society? What if your father was a criminal? What if you're just really, really small?

[29:19] Maybe we can make an exception in that case. Or if you're somebody who can't really take care of yourself, we can make an exception about your right to life. What if you're going to be a really big burden on your parents?

[29:34] We can make an exception in that case. I want you to notice something with each of these exceptions that I've described, because these are all things that are brought up when it comes to the topic of abortion.

[29:48] Each one of these doesn't just apply to children in the womb. Each of these exceptions can easily apply to a little toddler. They're small, aren't they?

[30:03] They're small. They can't take care of themselves. They're a lot of work, aren't they? A ton of work. Not really useful to society.

[30:16] Some little baby boys and girls are disabled. All of these apply to a little toddler. There's an apologetic technique if you're trying to be smart when talking to people about this topic.

[30:31] And it's called trotting out the toddler. So when you're talking to somebody about these issues, you can bring this up.

[30:43] Well, the justifications that you just provided for abortion in the womb also applies to the six-month-old. Is that what you're advocating?

[30:53] Oh, well, no. And so it can be useful to show someone the difficulty or the holes in their logic.

[31:06] There's also an acronym called SLED, and we don't have time to get into it, but S-L-E-D. And it addresses four different kind of issues that people talk about in justifying why we should allow abortion.

[31:21] S stands for size. So people talk about the size. Well, they're little. It's just a clump of cells. You know what else is a clump of cells?

[31:33] All of you. Right? We're all a clump of cells. Some of us have more cells than others. Right? But it's just small.

[31:45] Little baby boys and girls that are small. L stands for level of development. And we're all at different levels of development. And for many of us, our level of development grows.

[31:57] And then at the end of life, it starts to decline. Right? The environment that you're in. Well, is there something magical about the womb that makes this an opportunity to end the life of a human being?

[32:13] And then degree of dependency. We'll talk about, well, the child, you know, needs its mother. It's too much of a burden. Or, you know, shouldn't have to take care of little baby boys and girls.

[32:25] Well, that applies to little six-month-old, right? They need their mommy. They need their daddy. They need somebody to care for them. So, sled. Something you can maybe look up later.

[32:38] But here's the question. Why is it wrong? Why is it wrong? You know, I've seen a lot of comments on social media the last week raging at Christians.

[32:49] It's these Christians that are trying to impact our laws and getting rid of our rights. And a lot of people are saying, Christians, they're the problem.

[33:04] And you know what? They're absolutely right. We are the problem to their solution of violence against unborn children.

[33:20] And we should own that and be happy to own it. We definitely want to be a problem when it comes to violence against children. But even some Christians will say this. They'll say, well, in talking about this issue, we need to try to avoid religion.

[33:35] We need to try to just use secular arguments. Just talk about the science and things like that. I think that's a huge mistake.

[33:48] I had a conversation maybe, oh boy, seven or eight years ago with a professor at Cedarville University. I love Cedarville University. But I talked to this professor, and he was an advocate for the right to life.

[34:02] And he told me, he said, I only ever use secular arguments. Science and things like that. And here's why that is not adequate.

[34:17] Science can tell you how things are. It can tell you about the world. Science can tell you what a human being is.

[34:27] When life begins, science can tell us that. But science cannot tell you how things ought to be. That's not in the purview of science.

[34:41] Science can say this little baby at two days old, gestation, is a human being. But science isn't in the business.

[34:52] It doesn't have any authority to say, well, does that human being have a right to life? At any age, science doesn't tell us that, does it? Science only tells us what is, not what ought to be.

[35:08] But it's God, our creator, the one who created us. He tells us, in Genesis chapter 9. This is right after the flood.

[35:22] And God established something with Noah. And he said this. He talked about a few things. But he said, well, here, let me open up to it.

[35:32] Genesis chapter 9. It's right at the beginning of the book. It should be quick to find here. Genesis chapter 9.

[35:50] We'll start with verse 5. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning from the hand of every beast I will require it. And from the hand of man, from the hand of every man's brother, I will require the life of man.

[36:05] He's saying, listen, he's talking about murder, isn't he? Verse 6. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed.

[36:15] For the image of God he made man. He's saying, listen, if you don't treat the lives of human beings as sacrosanct, if you decide that you can just get rid of people, I will require your blood.

[36:34] Because life is sacrosanct. I'm the one who gave life. I'm the only one, God said, that can take it away. Not you.

[36:46] And then obviously in Exodus 20, verse 13, we have a commandment in the Ten Commandments. You shall not murder. There's another law interesting in the scriptures.

[36:58] And I've read this so many times. In fact, if you Google this issue, what does the Bible say about abortion? Most of the top listings will say, well, the Bible doesn't say anything about abortion at all.

[37:10] Is that true? Open up to Exodus 21. Sometimes these older laws can be difficult to parse.

[37:28] But I think this one is fairly straightforward. Exodus 21, verse 22. We'll start there.

[37:41] It says this. If men fight and hurt a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished according as the woman's husband imposes on him.

[37:54] He shall pay as the judge is determined. But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

[38:10] You know, in the Old Testament law, what we call this is a case law. And we actually have this in our jurisprudence in this country.

[38:21] You have cases and they provide a precedent or a principle for things beyond that. And so this is an example that provides a principle.

[38:33] And it says, listen, if there's two men fighting, they're committing violence against one another. They're doing a misdeed. And there's an accident.

[38:44] It's not intentional to harm the woman or her child, but she gets hurt. And if she gives birth prematurely, because, you know, if there's an injury, that can happen, right?

[38:57] If everybody was okay, mom and baby, if they were okay, then the judges, along with the husband, need to decide some kind of monetary remedy.

[39:09] You know, because you can have, it's like an injury, you know, it needs to be treated. And so there might be some kind of monetary impact on that family.

[39:23] But then it says this, But if any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.

[39:36] And is it talking about harm just to the woman? It can't be. And some people have tried to make that case. Because it's specifically talking about giving premature birth.

[39:49] That is the context. We're all about context in this church, aren't we? We read the context. The context is about a woman who gives premature birth because of some kind of act of violence.

[40:01] And so in this scripture, in the law of Moses, basically treats the death of a little baby boy or girl or injury in the exact same way as any other human being.

[40:17] Because this law, it just reflects the same law for harm to anybody else, right? And this phrase, you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, is in several places in the Bible.

[40:35] Some people really don't like that. I think it was, who's the guy in India? Gandhi. He said, he's famous for saying, you know, an eye for an eye. That's that, you know, Christian doctrine.

[40:46] It just makes the whole world blind. And that's, he's pretty, you know, he, a lot of people like that. But do you know that that's undermining God's word? An eye for an eye.

[40:58] Now, do we want to do an eye for an eye when it comes to just personal offenses? No, we don't want to do tit for tat, right? But when it comes to criminal justice, the Bible says that judges need to treat criminal punishment without mercy.

[41:14] We need to punish criminals for these kinds of things. That's how we uphold justice. That's the only way we can uphold justice. So the Bible talks about these things.

[41:29] The Bible talks about the unborn child being a human being. And it talks about criminal punishments for bringing harm to a little baby boy or girl.

[41:41] The title of this message is Defending Your Unborn Neighbor. And why would I use that kind of a phrase? In the Gospels, Jesus talks about your neighbor, right?

[41:55] And when Jesus brought up your neighbor, he said you should love your neighbor, right? And what did the Pharisees ask him a question? What did they say? Who is my neighbor anyway?

[42:08] And after that, it says, why did they say that? It says they sought to justify themselves. They wanted to justify themselves. And so a lot of people think, well, these little baby boys and girls are kind of hidden away, right?

[42:23] And this abortion practice is usually hidden away in these clinics, a lot of times with the windows blacked out. Things like that going on.

[42:36] But we need to treat unborn children like our neighbor and find opportunities where we can defend their lives. They're under constant threat.

[42:48] Even today with the Roe v. Wade decision being overturned, there is still not established a right to life for unborn children. That's our goal. That's what we need to be fighting for.

[42:58] So just like the Jesus, in talking about the who's your neighbor, what did Jesus do? He told a story, right?

[43:09] It was the story of the Good Samaritan. And so it was really a hit on the religious people, the Jews themselves.

[43:20] Because there was this man who was in need, a man who was in need on the side of the road. He had been injured and beaten up. And there was a Levite and a priest, the holy men, if you will.

[43:31] And they walked on by. And as a call to action today, I just want to say, let's not just walk on by. Whether it's something to add to the legal code, an amendment to our Constitution, whatever it might be.

[43:48] And I'm praying for the leaders out there, in this state especially, that we can advocate to uphold the right to life of the unborn child here in the state of Ohio.

[43:59] And if opportunities arise, the nation as a whole, that's something that we should have done. And some people have been working towards it for a long time.

[44:13] This decision opens a door for us to make the progress that we need to make. I have a few resources as I finish this up.

[44:25] This is one of the best things, and Pastor Marv says this all the time. What does he say? Information, right? Information is the key. And so education is important.

[44:37] You know, I just touched the surface on this topic this morning. But there are lots of questions that people ask and people will say. And sometimes we don't always know how to respond.

[44:48] So I have a few resources. This one is called Human Personhood Begins at Conception. And it just talks about that topic. I have a bunch of copies.

[45:00] Take them. You don't have to pay anything. Here's another one. Are there rare cases when abortion is justified? This talks about all the exceptions that are brought up. And it gets into some of the details on whether those really make sense.

[45:17] Here's another one. What they never told you about the facts of life. And this is just education about the science, really, behind conception and fertilization and fetology and life in the womb.

[45:31] It's got color pictures in there. And it talks a little bit about abortion, but it doesn't get into too much nitty-gritty. This one, are we all created equal?

[45:44] This is part of Created Equal, the group that Ethan's been a part of this summer. And it gets into this question about being created equal and babies in the womb. One of the things this has in it is pictures of abortion, which are very difficult to look at.

[46:03] So take care in picking these up and who picks them up. But it's good for people to see what they're advocating for. I think it can make a tremendous difference.

[46:13] That's a big part of the ministry that Ethan's involved in this summer. And here's another one. This is more of a comprehensive resource by Randy Alcorn. Anybody ever read anything by him? He's written like 100 books.

[46:25] The guy's prolific. But he wrote this book, Why Pro-Life? And it goes into all the different arguments, how to make a good case, how to respond to the different objections, and that kind of thing.

[46:40] Very comprehensive book. This one, you can do a donation for this table, or just take it if you don't have it. I think we've got maybe 10 copies or so out there.

[46:52] So educate yourself. If this is a topic you don't feel like you're really grounded in, you don't feel like you can have a good conversation with people, because we need to continue to advocate for the unborn child in this country.

[47:08] This Dobbs decision didn't end abortion, but it did open a door for us to rush in, to go to battle, to bring that to pass.

[47:22] So let's end there with a word of prayer. Father, this is a difficult subject to talk about, but so, so important, and we know it is important to you.

[47:34] So, we ask you to work in each one of us to help us grow in our understanding of this issue and open up doors, Father, for us to be part of the solution, to be part of the battle in defending these little baby boys and girls who need our help, our support, our love, and our care.

[47:56]  Do this in this church and in each of the individuals here, in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.