Remain standing and open your Bibles to the Old Testament, the book of Proverbs. Proverbs chapter eight. Proverbs chapter eight. I'm going to read verse 32. through 36. And before I read that portion of Proverbs 8, let's ask the Lord's blessing upon each and every one of us and the reading and preaching of his word. Let's pray. Now gracious Father of all glory, of all truth, of all grace, it's in the name of Jesus that we come and now sit at your word. We pray for enlightenment and we pray Lord for understanding. We pray Lord that we would heed these commandments that we would understand them so that we might. Apply them that we might practice them in our lives, that we would truly be seekers of sound wisdom, heavenly wisdom, and the benefit of that wisdom in our lives would be happiness and blessedness. Now, Father, do bless us to see and understand that, Lord, only in you is life. And only in that life can there be happiness and blessedness. Everything that is anti-Christ, everything that is anti-God is death and sorrow and misery. Now, Father, help us to understand and grasp these concepts, these this understanding so that we might be faithful sons and daughters of the living God. We pray it in Christ's name. Amen. Brothers and sisters, I want to begin reading at verse 32. And now my sons listen to me and those who keep my ways are happy. Listen to instruction and be wise. Don't ignore it. Anyone who listens to me is happy watching at my doors every day, waiting by the post of my doorway for the one who finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord. But the one who sins against me harms himself and all who hate me love death. And thus ends the reading of God's word. You may be seated. As many of you already know, I did have the privilege of attending a pastor's meeting last week. Probably, I don't know, close to 50 pastors or so had met with an organization out of Arizona called End Abortion Now, and it's a concentrated effort to see a legislation passed in the state of Georgia that would give the unborn equal protection under the law. called the Equal Protection Act. There is a representative that is willing to take this legislation to the floor for debate and consideration and hopefully through the committee for a vote. And that representative is Emery Dunahue out of Gainesville. I certainly ask that you pray for him and contact him and let him know that you are praying for him and that you are in great support of him presenting this legislation in the Georgia house. What's my role? What is the role of a pastor of God's people concerning this evil that has plagued this nation and even, well, across the world for at least a generation now? To speak against it. And we have at various times and in various ways, but this morning I want to begin a series of messages that will particularly address it as it relates to our representatives. hopefully taking and bringing to bear the moral law of God upon these legislatures to bow to the King of glory and pass this legislation and rid this state of this evil called abortion. It's estimated I don't know how accurate the number is that was a number that was used in this meeting last week but it's estimated and even if it's close it's horrendous that there'll be 30,000 abortions in Georgia this year 30,000 this is the Bible belt. There's churches on every corner. Baptist churches, Pentecostal churches, Presbyterian churches, all kinds of churches. This is supposed to be the standard of those churches, those who claim to be Christians. And yet to have such a prevailing evil go unchecked for so long, It's an embarrassment to the people of God and it's offensive to the King of glory. Now that's what the book of Proverbs, that's the text that I read in your hearing, that's what it says. It says that the one who sins against me, your version may have offend. And that would be an accurate idea and concept of the Hebrew there. for the one who sins against me harms himself or destroys himself. It's not safe to sin against God. Let me say it again. It's not safe to offend God. It's not safe for any of us individually or collectively to sin against God. It's not a good thing at all. There's nothing good that can come out of offending God. In fact, the text tells us that those who do destroy themselves. They bring great harm to themselves. They hurt themselves. Now brothers and sisters I'm not a biologist I'm not a scientist. I am a simple preacher and in many ways just a country preacher. I am one that's been ordained through the lineage of starting with Jesus handing down to the apostles and onward that would carry forth the great commission in the ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ. but it's an undeniable fact in our day and time. It's undeniable that life begins at conception. It's undeniable. Science has proven it in a hundred different ways, but we didn't need science to tell us that, did we? We didn't need scientists or the collective group of scientists or journals, medical journals, scientific journals. We didn't need a professional class of people to inform us that life begins at conception. For the holy word of God has told us this. I mean there are dozens of place in the scriptures and it's not my intention to address that particular point now. I'll just mention it. Where God knows the embryo, where God is speaking to the embryo as a person. We didn't need a scientist to tell us these things. You see brothers and sisters this is not a scientific problem it's not a problem of biology it's a moral problem. It's a moral problem and it's a moral stain on this nation and on our state. Now I have to say this from the outset because I don't want anybody to check out and I don't want anyone that might be listening to us online or and through some other form of media turn it off without knowing this. Because of man's own depravity coupled with all of the lies that's been promoted for decades about it's nothing but a clump of cells it's just a bunch of tissue it's really nothing. I mean when you add in all of the lies all of the misdirections all of the deceit coupled with our hearts already being wayward and and willing to stray from God. There are many who are guilty of abortion many young women guilty of abortion and it should grieve us. So what's their comfort in listening to some preacher like myself preach about breaking the moral law of God? Well, simply this, and I'll address it fully later, that there is forgiveness in Christ, there's healing in Christ, there's redemption, and he can wash away that stain. See for so long the lie has been this will make this young lady happy. And I don't want to just speak to the young lady because there's typically a man behind that woman pushing her to do these things. He's guilty too. I'm not at all blaming it all on her. There's often several involved. It could be the family that would push to have this done through because of embarrassment, because of a number of things. And the point of these series of messages is not to dissect those motivations or those motives, but what I want to do is certainly always set forth. There is grace and forgiveness in Christ. You can't go to the doctor and get this. And you can't go to some denomination and get it. You have to go to Christ. You have to flee to him. You have to go to the very fount of that grace and salvation and mercy and love and drink from that. And that will always be my encouragement, our encouragement to those who have bought that lie and those who have, well, committed that evil. I want to speak and I hope that we can leverage many of our Georgia legislators to pass this bill. And I think the way that I can aid and help in this movement in this short period of time to help Georgia right to life, to help end abortion now and, and, and for the primarily for the sake of God's glory. to not just speak against this evil but to morally leverage anyone involved that has anything to do with passing this bill so that well we can rid this state of this evil. And so I want to preach a series of sermons. I hope you will find them adequate enough to send out to post on your social media to send even to the legislators call. and encourage them because here's the thing. Many of these legislators are gonna profess to be Christians. Just as many in the pro-life movement locally and nationally are going to profess to be Christians. And yet what we are finding is that they are very selective in their definition of pro-life. And this is a great evil in the sight of God. That's not justice. Justice is equal across the board. Life begins at conception and that life ought to be protected as sacred. Made in the image of God. And it should be protected that's justice and that's what we're calling for we're calling for will equal justice of the law to all who are well living. So this morning how do I how do I begin to break this text down and approach. This topic that is so emotional and so controversial among Christians and so distorted. Well, first of all, in verse 32, notice that in this series of verses, notice the emphasis is on instruction. And now, my sons, listen to me. Look at verse 33, listen to instruction and be wise. Verse 34, anyone who listens to me is happy. And so, the first thing that I wanna do is help us understand in order for us to live this wise and happy life, this life of blessing before Almighty God, we must first be instructed. We must first know what to do. We must know how to live. We must have our thinking fashioned according to the will of God. Now in relationship to this abortion, And so all I'm gonna speak to, I'm gonna limit what I'm talking about to the nature of abortion and to those who profess to know Christ and how they should stand against it and apply equal justice to all who are, whether they're born or unborn. And that is just and right in God's sight. But what I want us to understand is, and we just prayed it this morning, didn't we? When we prayed the Lord's Prayer, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come on earth as it is, where? In heaven. So it's the will of God is to direct us, and where do we go to learn the will of God? Well, you could say, well, the Bible, Pastor. Good job. because we are to glean from Scripture and from all different genres of Scripture, right? Those duties, those moral duties that are required of us, and not only to shape what we believe, but how we live. But there's a particular section of Scripture that sets forth the will of God, and it's called the Ten Commandments. It's called the moral law of God, and those Ten Commandments Are the summary, the summary, they are, but summary statements of God's moral law. Now you can find those two summaries in two places. The first one is Deuteronomy five, where I'm not going to turn there. I'm going to turn to the second one, which is Exodus 20, Exodus 20. One is given to Israel as they are entering, if you will, they have just left Egypt and God has given to them a summary of his will and law. And Deuteronomy is given, re-given, right, before they enter into the promised land. Here's what I wanna do. I want to demonstrate How heinous abortion is now you can say well we know it's heinous it's murder. Well we have a reformed hermeneutic when interpreting God's law because all sins are not equal. All sins are not equal. There are some sins that are more heinous than other sins. Now there are certain there are qualifications for what makes a sin more heinous than another. It could be the person that sins. Obviously a pastor that takes advantage. of others because of his office. Well that's that's one of those marks that's that's one of those notches of being a very heinous sin age older saying should know better on a lot of things what the sin is who's the sin against it's it's more grievous to sin against a child. Right. Then it is an adult who can defend himself or herself. So there are some qualifications but there's another qualification and that qualification is what I'm going to rest on among others and that is if a sin violates one or more commandments it is a heinous sin in God's sight. That is the offensiveness of it. is heightened in God's sight. He's more offended at this sin than even other sins because this sin touches on every one of his laws, moral law. Now what's a moral law? What's a moral law in relationship differently than the ceremonial law or the judicial law? Well, the moral law is a law that we would call binding on all people at all times and in all circumstances, right? It's eternal. It's perpetual. It's binding on all classes of people. There's no one outside of it. All are under it. So it's those moral duties that belong to every person every family every institution every country every nation everyone. where the ceremonial laws are no longer binding on anyone at all other than those underlying moral precepts because the ceremonial laws expired in Christ. They were terminated in Christ. They were fulfilled, I'm sorry, fulfilled in Christ. He fulfilled them because the characteristic of a ceremonial law was to set forth the person and work of Jesus Christ. And so when the reality, when he showed up and performed his redemptive work, He fulfilled those laws. And so now those laws are no longer binding on us. You are no longer required to go out and offer up a goat or a bull as a sacrifice. Jesus is that sacrifice. You don't have to go to the Holy Land three times a year. Then those judicial laws. Now those judicial laws, our confession tells us, expired with that nation of Israel. Those were laws that were particular to the nation of Israel and as that nation passed away particularly in 80 70 those laws passed away with that nation except for those underlying moral laws that undergirded those judicial laws. That is, there's a moral principle that underlines those judicial laws. Now, that remains binding. Whatever that moral principle was is still binding because the moral law is binding on everyone, well, in all ages, without exception. even kings. So we have that to set forth and so what I want to do is I want us to work through these commandments in order to instruct us what how does this sin break these commandments because I want us to walk away with this is a heinous sin. And this is what we need to be instructed with so that we can talk to others. Because there's so much confusion, there's so much, there's so many lies and myths being spread about what the Bible says about abortion. What God thinks about abortion. Well, his law tells us what he thinks. about a lot of things and in particular we're going to be looking at it as it relates to abortion. Now I originally intended to address all 10 commandments at one time and it's not going to happen. So what I'm going to do, or at least what I'm going to attempt to do is get through the first table, the first four commandments this morning, and then we'll address the other six next week. And you might say, well, well, pastor, why don't you just start with the second table of the law? Because that's an obvious one, right? Thou shalt not murder. Let's start with that commandment and believe it or not, I did. And you know what murder is. I wonder if any of you can, in a sentence, define murder. I wonder if most of us could even recite the Ten Commandments. All ten of them. Because you know, there's been all kinds of surveys come out that basically states that not only pastors, not only pastors cannot recite the Ten Commandments, but most professing Christians cannot recite a majority of the Ten Commandments. That's part of the problem, is it not? That's part of the problem of our moral, well, decay. It's part of the problem that the church seems rudderless and well, doesn't know what to do. And things fill that void, right? Like myths and the spirit of the age and various philosophies and whatnot come to fill that space. And so that's a problem, isn't it? But there was a man that lived in the early 1800s. His name was Reverend Barnes. He was a Presbyterian minister in Virginia. And he had a collision with a slave owner in particular. And this pastor barred this slave owner from the table. And the slave owner brought charges against him and took him to the presbytery and said he had no business barring me from the table. And so the presbytery admonished Reverend Barnes and said you don't have the right the moral high ground to bar this family this gentleman from the Lord's table and so reinstate him let him partake of the Lord's supper. Well. He left Presbytery and did not fulfill that admonition. He decided he was going to stand his ground. He believed that this was an immoral thing and that he was going to teach and preach against it and bar this slave owner from taking the Lord's Supper. And of course, the congregate went back to Presbytery and complained and they removed Reverend Barnes from the pulpit. They defrocked him, took away his credentials, and he was no longer a minister of the gospel. What does that have to do with anything? Well he wrote a book around 1833 and it was called How Slavery Breaks All of God's Commandments. And in that book he exposits the Ten Commandments highlighting the reality and nature of chattel slavery. and how it breaks God's law and because it breaks God's law it's offensive to God and therefore we ought to speak against it. Now that book you say well I didn't know that. Well that book was the impetus of Robert Dabney writing his book A Defense for Virginia and the South. in which he tried to use scripture to justify various practices of that chattel slavery, and it falls short if you've ever read it. In fact, there are a couple of points he makes that are downright embarrassing. And that was the first time in the history of the American, in the American evangelical church, the Presbyterian church, that scripture had been used to justify slavery. That was the first time. And it was an epic failure. And that really started the turmoil between the churches and God's people at that point. So I'm going to, in keeping of that similar practice, I want to take this particular sin and I want to lay it to the next to God's word, to the law of God. And let's look at how it violates God's commandments. Well, if you turn to Exodus 20, I would encourage you I often. Often cite recite or point to various. Statements that the confession makes not because it's on par with scripture but because it is a very valuable summary of the teaching of scripture and it's useful to us and so I hope that you have a Westminster confession. larger and shorter catechism because you can take what I'm just going to skim the surface but you because I can only spend about 10 minutes eight minutes to own these each of these four commandments but you can go home. and then begin to study these portions of the confession and how biblical it is in nature and look up these scripture references. And I think you'd be greatly edified from doing so. Well, let's look at Exodus 20. I'm going to begin reading at verse 1. And I'm going to read down through the fourth commandment right there in verse 11. Listen now to this section of scripture and God spoke all these words. These are from God. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the place of slavery. And do not have other gods beside me. Do not make an idol for yourself, whether in the shape of anything in the heavens above or the earth below or the waters under the earth. You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the father's sin to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands. Do not misuse the name of the Lord, your God, because the Lord will punish anyone who misuses his name. Remember to dedicate, remember to dedicate the Sabbath day. You are to labor six days and do all your work. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, your God. You must not do any work. You or your sons or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock or your foreigner. who is within your gates for the Lord made the heavens and the earth the sea and everything in them in six days and he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and declared it holy. And thus I'll end there. Let's look at that first commandment. The first commandment thou shall not have any other gods before me. Now this particular version that I'm reading is I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the place of slavery do not have other gods beside me. Now what's the essence of the first commandment. What does it forbid. Well idolatry. Idolatry. This commandment says that You to have no other gods. I am the only and true God. Now it doesn't state that in explicit, explicitly, but that's the inference, isn't it? I'm the only true and living God. I'm the only one. And of course he's already mentioned, I'm the God that brought you out of the land. I've already demonstrated my power and even my love for you. I delivered you out of the house of bondage. I delivered you from the devil. Pharaoh being that type of evil, right? I delivered you out of his hands. I delivered you out of that place. I brought you out of that land that I might take you into the land flowing with milk and honey, where I will be your God. Have no other gods. Now, abortion. I mean, listen. Yes, it explicitly breaks the sixth commandment. Do not murder. But this commandment's the foundation of them all. This commandment's the moral foundation of everything. In fact, it's the first table of the law that is even greater than the second table of the law. How do I know this? Well, remember the question that the attorney, the lawyer, asked Jesus? Well, what's the greatest commandments? And the other one likened unto it. What did Jesus say? Well, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. That's the greatest commandment. These are the first four commandments. These first four commandments teach us to do what? Love God with all of our mind, soul, and strength. So even the first table of the law exceeds in glory and prominence and duty than the second table of the law. That's not minimizing the second table of the law, but God comes first. God is first. Brothers and sisters, look at the spirit of the age, the idolatry of comfort, convenience, the God of convenience. I can't give birth to this baby. It's just an inconvenience though. I love having promiscuous sex. But listen, listen, that would be too easy. I don't wanna just address immoral people. Because of the philosophy of the day, the spirit of the age, the great reset, the whole new world order, the idolatry of environmentalism, let's control the population, let's get rid of a bunch of people. for the sake of the earth. Look at the idolatry of feminism. You deserve so much more than a family. I can say this with utmost confidence. Ordinarily, and I say ordinarily because there are mothers that have no joy There are women who have no joy in raising children. But when you see a mother with a child in her arms, and you see that little child caress her face, you see nothing but love in the eyes of that mother. There is a connection. There is a power That woman, that mother will fight you tooth and nail to protect that child. That's ordinary. That's natural. That's common. That's understood and yet they are trying to rob ladies and women of that affection and as if it's wrong and you shouldn't have it and you should have higher goals and aspirations than raising snotty-nosed children or having a husband. But this is something that far transcends again the young class, the young age. This goes into families, families not desiring children, husbands telling their wives you will abort this pregnancy. We do not want children. We can't live the lifestyle we need or we want because we don't want to bring this child into this world. It's idolatry. It's the God of comfort, the God of ease. What did Jesus tell us? What did we look at last week? You cannot serve both God and mammon. You can't. It's impossible. What are some of the duties I'm going to read out of the confession? What are some of the duties required in the first commandment? I want you to listen to this and I want you to begin to assimilate how abortion breaks many of these. Okay. And again, we can't dissect every one of them, but the duties required in the first commandment are the knowing and acknowledging of God to be the only true God and our God. and to worship and glorify him accordingly by thinking, meditating, remembering, highly esteeming, honoring, adoring, choosing, loving, desiring, fearing of him, believing him, trusting, hoping, delighting, rejoicing in him, being zealous for him. Let's go back a few thousand years to Mary. Mary. you're gonna be with child have never known a man how can that be the Holy Spirit will come upon you Mary and you will conceive a child and you will call him Jesus for he will save his people from their sins let it be done rejoicing in him If this is the Lord's will. You know, I had a great conversation with my youngest daughter about this particular passage of scripture. We were talking about the embarrassment, the cultural embarrassment. We were, I mean, even her husband went to put her away privately and, and Angel came to him and said, no, no, no, Joseph, this is not what you think, but this would be what you would normally think, right? She's had some type of affair. She's had some type of, uh, she's been with someone that's not me. Oh no, no, this is not what you think. Rejoicing in him, being zealous for him, calling upon him, giving all praise and thanks, yielding all obedience and submission to him with the whole mind, being careful in all things to please him and sorrowful when in anything he is offended like abortion. one of the young ladies that my youngest daughter works with. I got pregnant and was considering abortion. And I praise the Lord for the love and the counsel of my daughter who was her friend and did not abandon her but sat with her and pleaded with her and prayed with her and said, this is not what you need to do. And she's decided to keep that child. Now, was that what she had planned for her life? She's a college student. No. It's a great interruption. It's a great inconvenience. You've raised some children, it's gonna be tough. But you don't offend God again, and even with a greater offense than the immoral act, amen? You don't. murder the child to rid yourself of the problem because that's a even greater offense in the eyes of God than the original immorality. And this is what we need to tell these legislators. The child has nothing to do with it. In an abortion oftentimes I mean there are exceptions very few exceptions some of these babies miraculously survive such a heinous aggressive violent attack upon them. And what testimony so many of them have is glorifying to God in many ways and fully I would say and and yet but at the same time at the same time brothers and sisters. The hatred for the things of God as Proverbs 8 says, the hatred for the things of God leads to a culture of death. A culture of death. Every anti-Christian culture is a culture that maximizes death, sorrow, and misery. It sells it. It promotes it. It propagandizes it. It politicizes it. It promotes it in every way possible. Rebellion on every stripe, on every level. Those who hate me love death. That's an indicative, it's a fact. Whether you like it, whether you wanna believe it or not, it is what God says and it's so. We need to inform these legislators that they are, if they do not pass this Equal Rights Act, they are becoming what? Well, they are part of the problem. They are complicit in the murder of innocent children. They're complicit. They're just as guilty as the Apostle Paul who stood and held the garments of those who stoned Stephen in the book of Acts. They're just as guilty as he is for not raising his voice, telling them to stop. This is evil in God's sight. What are the sins forbidden in the first commandment? I may not get through them in two Sundays, but nevertheless, what's the sins forbidden in the first commandment? Well, atheism, denying or not having a God, or idolatry in having or worshiping more gods than one and any other instead of the true God. Look at Jeremiah. 19. I mean, when I talk about this being a foundational commandment, of course, it's foundational commandment on all sin, but certainly related to what we're talking about and Jeremiah 19. Now look, this is related to, you say you're a Christian, to say you're a Christian is to imply you serve God. That's the implication. I'm a disciple, I submit to him, I love him, I serve him, that's the implication. Well look at 19 verse four of Jeremiah, it says, because they have abandoned me, and made this a foreign place, they have burned incense in it to other gods that they, their fathers, and the kings of Judah have never known. They have filled this place with the blood of the innocent, and they have built high places to bale on which to burn their children in the fires, burnt offerings to bale, something I have never commanded or mentioned. I've never entertained the thought. What's the correlation? What's the connection here? Well, your God dictates how you live. Every God has a set of commandments. Every whether it's idle or the true and living God if God is your God study his will do it perform it love it If money is your God, what are you going to do? You're going to submit to it you're going to you're going to direct your life and serve the acquiring of money if Pleasure, whatever that pleasure is, if that is your God, then you are going to pursue pleasure at all costs, you're not gonna let anything get in the way, and you're gonna fill your life, that void, that where God should be, you're gonna fill your life with all of these doctrines, teachings of that God. And we mentioned a few of them when we talked about the spirit of the age, whether it be the role, feminism plays a huge part in this. This idolatry of the woman, I mean, because what's some of the arguments we hear? Well, it's the woman's body. What is some of the arguments used by the national right to life? We will not support any legislation that will in any way criminalize the woman. Why is she protected? Is she a protected class? That's a good question, isn't it? See, these are the questions we need to be bringing as Christians, sober-minded Christians, biblical Christians, to the debate. Well, why is she, why can she break God's law and be guiltless? How can that be? Well, it's an unborn life. Okay. So as soon as that baby's born, it has privileges, but not a second later, not a minute later, not a month later, not two months later, not nine months later. See what's happened is. With the cancellation or with the overturning of Roe v. Wade what's happened is now they've made abortion a household thing. You may have seen it in the news this week the FDA has approved right the abortion pill and it's lawful for any woman who's pregnant to own order and possess this pill. She's special. She's a protected class. Now we all know, or at least maybe we know, maybe we don't know, maybe it bears me saying this. They're just being used politically. That's all this is. They don't care about women. I mean, these legislators, they don't care about women. They care about power. They care about sustaining their own glory. They care about their own bank accounts. That's what they care about. They care about staying in power. So these are myths and lies that they are willing to promote in order to keep abortion legal. And I'm gonna deal with how profitable death is in the future in this series. It's profitable. I would say the national right to life has a monetary interest that Borschtin doesn't go away. Because they collect millions of dollars every year. And across the nation and all the various forms of pro-life movements, I would say hundreds of millions of dollars. As long as abortion is somehow legal, they can play upon our heartstrings and continue to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in the name of life, but turn right around and oppose an equal justice legislation, an equal right to justice legislation that would completely eradicate abortion altogether, which would get rid of them, which means they would make no more money, which means they have to go get jobs. You know, one thing my daddy told me a long time ago, I remember doing a report on civil government. You know, we used to do that in school. We used to learn about civil government and the very branches of the government and what they do and how they work and why they're important. You know, we did all that way back then. It wasn't that long ago. I'm a very young person. But I remember asking him some questions. And the thing I remember to this day, I remember him looking at me as we were riding down the road. He said, boy, follow the money. Follow the money. Follow the money. And I didn't know what that really meant then. but I've never forgotten it, but you know what I believe today? Follow the money. Find out who's getting the money, and you'll find out what's going on. Find out who's the lobbies. Find out who the lobbyists are. Find out how they're padding the pockets of those legislators. Find out how they're leveraging these legislators to, again, I wanna end with this. And some of you know this, but for the sake of the sermon and for those who haven't, it'll help. I'm not picking on the national right to life. They're guilty of these things. I'm not just beating them up for the sake of the sermon or for the sake of making myself look some way or another. This end abortion now group had legislation that had been approved they were going to vote. It was going to pass the Louisiana legislature. They had agreed to it. They had the votes needed. It was going to go through. It was going to be the first state to pass such legislation. But the National Right to Life along with 70 other organizations wrote a letter to these legislators and came in there and said, do not pass this bill. Now think about it, this would have eradicated, this would have done away with abortion totally. And what they said was, you cannot support any legislation that would criminalize the woman. So abortion continues. Brothers and sisters, I'll leave you. We only covered that first commandment, and I'll address some of the details of it next Sunday. But this is the foundational commandment. Who's your God? When we talk to these legislators, when we make phone calls, when we call them to morally leverage them, that's a great question. Who is your God? Are you a Christian? Great. Well, this is what God says. All life is precious in his sight. And murder, the breaking of the sixth commandment, is the unjust taking of life. The unjust taking of life. Now, we didn't need a scientist to tell us life begins at conception. But since life does begin at conception, let me ask you this, shouldn't it be protected? Amen. And we need to let them know particularly especially as they profess to be Christians. There is only one way to vote here. There's only there's no neutral ground here. It's either just or unjust. It is either a moral protection of the unborn or it is a an immoral murdering of the unborn. Let's pray. Now gracious father we are thankful for the time we've had this morning. Father that we begin just. to look at your law to look at your word because it governs our ethics our morality it's binding upon us. So Lord I pray that as we work through these commandments and as we begin to examine it in relation to this heinous heinous act of abortion Lord we would become even more appalled by it more offended by it. And we would just want to teach others, Lord, what we know, what we learn. Lord, we're at the very beginning of being instructed, Lord, so that we can live that life of happiness and blessedness before you. And I pray, Lord, that you would bless this series, that you would bless our endeavors. Lord this short window of time we have to to call and to encourage and motivate and Lord to even leverage if need be these state legislators Lord to do what is right in thy sight. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.