Well, I think if Elijah were with us today, he would be approving of a break that we'll be taking from his ministry today. The subject that we're considering this afternoon is, it's being hit with a lot of firepower today, as was mentioned. John MacArthur preached on it this morning. A certain church in Apologia will be preaching on it later this evening, actually. We have Tom Askall preaching on it as well. And it may be preached upon with great risk in Canada today. That's the most dangerous place that you could be preaching this right now. I would ask that you turn to Genesis chapter one to start with. Genesis chapter one. We'll begin reading in verse 26. Genesis chapter one. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed. To you, it shall be for meat, and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat. And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And that word very there, me'od, it's frequently translated exceedingly. It's a strong, forceful adjective. Very good. And then, literally, that was evening and that was morning, the sixth day. And let's turn now to Mark chapter eight. Mark chapter eight, verse 38. Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his father with the holy angels. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let's bow in a word of prayer. Our great God and Father, we thank you for this hour. We thank you for your word. We thank you that it enlightens our eyes and our paths so that we can know who you are, we can know who we are, that we can know anything at all. Lord, as we contemplate this subject this afternoon, may it be to your honor and to your glory. May we be found faithful in your vineyard, serving in it. in our life. He asked this in the name of your son, Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, the bride of Christ is on the cusp of shining more brightly than she has in 500 years. She will once again shine in her own blood. And from the eternal calm of heaven, it will be seen as one of the most clarifying moments in the New Testament church. On December 8, 2021, Queen Elizabeth II granted royal consent to the Canadian Bill C-4. This after the act was unanimously voted for by the Canadian Senate and House of Commons, the two houses that jointly comprise Canada's 44th Parliament. This act came into force in Canada 30 days after it received the Queen's royal consent. 30th day was one week ago. Bill C-4 makes it a criminal act to provide what it styles conversion therapy in Canada with the stipulation that those found guilty of this criminal act can face up to five years in prison. Now Bill C-4 defines this conversion therapy as any practice, treatment, or service designed to, and there's a list of things, A, change a person's sexual orientation to heterosexual. B, change a person's gender identity to cisgender. C, change a person's gender expression so that it conforms to the sex assigned to the person at birth. D, repress or reduce non-heterosexual attraction or sexual behavior. E, repress a person's non-cisgender gender identity. or F, repress or reduce a person's gender expression that does not conform to the sex assigned to the person at birth. And I want us to hear the opening sentences of the bill. The preamble reads as follows, quote, whereas conversion therapy causes harm to the persons who are subjected to it. Whereas conversion therapy causes harm to society because among other things it is based on and propagates myths and stereotypes about sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression, including the myth that heterosexuality, cisgender gender identity, and gender expression that conforms to the sex assigned to a person at birth are to be preferred over other sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions. And whereas, in light of those harms, it is important to discourage and denounce the provision of conversion therapy in order to protect the human dignity and equality of all Canadians. Now, therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and the House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows. That's the preamble, and then it spells out in more detail how it amends the criminal code to now include this so-called conversion therapy. Now, as I think it's very obvious to us, this Bill C-4 is in direct attack to God's created order of mankind as revealed in Holy Scripture. And this bill is intentionally vague on whether or not the mere proclaiming and preaching of God's created order would result in criminal prosecution. We will soon find out whether that is so or not. But if so, then the sermon that we will be preaching today would be punishable for up to five years in prison in Canada. Now there's a group of Christians in Canada called Liberty Coalition Canada that has requested that today on January 16, churches publicly preach the biblical truth on this subject and that they continue to do so annually on the anniversary of Bill C-4's passing. And in this appeal, Liberty Coalition Canada reminds us of a quotation that is often attributed to Martin Luther. We don't know for sure if it came from him, but it says this, quote, if I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God, except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ. However boldly I may be professing Christ, Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battlefields besides is nearly flight and disgrace if he flinches on that point. Well, there are three parts to my message today. The first part is the blasphemy. The second is the rebuttal. The third is the charge. As we contemplate this Bill C-4, I want to remind us that this wickedness of transgenderism is not confined to the borders of Canada. It is fast encircling around us here in the United States as well. I want to give four brief examples. If you find yourself disgusted by them, it is a good thing. We're in the blasphemy part of this message. First example, you may have seen a few weeks ago a student named Sasha White was filling out an application to enroll at the City University of New York School of Law. On this application, there was a drop-down to specify your gender. Now, on any same drop-down that demonstrates the God-ordained gender binary, you would have seen two options on this drop-down, male and female. Instead, here were the options, agender, androgen, bigender, demigender, gender fluid, gender queer, pangender, trans male, trans female, two-spirit, a gender not listed, decline to answer, non-binary, cis female, cis male. Notice how the last two, that actually the only ones that belong there are at the bottom and then they inverted the order. We read in Genesis male and female and they've got it, cis female, cis male. Second example, a pregnant man emoji was approved in September 2021 as part of the Unicode 14.0 and it was added to Emoji 14.0. It is coming to major platforms including iOS and Android throughout 2022. This blasphemy is coming onto your phones. According to Emojipedia, quote, this emoji was approved to make the emoji keyboard more consistent and gender inclusive, end quote. Third example, on January 25th, 2020, Joe Biden tweeted this, quote, let's be clear, transgender equality is the civil rights issue of our time. There is no room for compromise when it comes to basic human rights. Now, when Biden says transgender equality and basic human rights, he is not talking about simply being civil to transgenders. He is saying that you must affirm their lie with them. You must refer to them by their preferred pronouns. You must allow them to use their preferred bathrooms. You must allow them to perform in sports as the gender they identify with or else. There is no room for compromise, he says. Well, I agree with Mr. Biden. There is no room for compromise. There are a lot of so-called Christians who are more committed to religious pluralism than are the tyrants on Capitol Hill. Is Biden more committed to his position on transgenderism than we are? I hesitate to give this fourth example, but in my day job, I was working on a registration page that had a gender dropdown on it, and I was requested to give this gender dropdown three choices, male, female and other slash non-binary. I told my manager no and I gave my reasons from scripture. Not doing it. You're going to have to find someone else. You see, God will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah if he does not punish this land for this abomination. But as we contemplate these examples, we want to recognize that there is a pressure in these days to conform us to the world. And this pressure to conform, it's coming for you, it's coming for me. So we need to know where we stand, we need to know why. And we need to decide right now, in the calm of this hour, what we're willing to sacrifice for our position. And here's a spoiler alert. If you're not willing to sacrifice your job, and that's a very real reality in this day. If you're not willing to sacrifice your job, your children, your house, and your life on this issue of transgenderism, you are not worthy of being called Christ's disciple. Now, I sense that there is a false notion in a lot of professing Christianity that thinks that as long as we just mind our own business that we won't get into trouble. And conversely, that if someone does happen to get into trouble, that they were trying too hard somehow. They probably had a rebellious spirit and they weren't minding their own business. This false thinking says that as long as we strive to live peaceably with all men, we won't get into trouble. Now, it wouldn't say this out loud, but that's the thinking in which life is approached. And if someone has a brush with the law, well, they must be guilty of something. They're doing something wrong. Brothers and sisters, I'm weary of that kind of Christianity. Listen to what C.H. Spurgeon had to say on this. Quote, I am somewhat pleased when I occasionally hear of a brother's being locked up by the police, for it does him good, and it does the people good also. It is a fine sight to see the minister of the gospel marched off by the servant of the law. It's in book two of C.H. Spurgeon's lectures to my students. If you are here today in the name of God, There is coming a time when having not suffered shame on his name may mean that you have apostatized to fail to affirm Christ is to deny Christ. We read the beginning here, this verse in Mark eight, where he says, whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation of him also shall the son of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his father with the holy angels. Or what about this in Luke 12, 8 and 9, he says, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God. But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. The only two choices are to confess Christ before men or to deny Christ before men. You see, holing yourself up in your little house, holing yourself up in your little church, that's not an option here. There's no known category for that in these sayings of Christ. To fail to confess Christ before men is to deny Christ before men. Brothers and sisters, this idea that someone gets in trouble for saying the wrong thing in the public square, that they were foolish to get out of the bunker, that has the death smell of apostasy in it. Such persons are fruitless and worthless in the service of the kingdom of our Lord. They're not worthy of being Christ's disciples. You see, if you would follow him, you must take up your cross and you must death march to Golgotha. That is the true cost of discipleship. There's an eternity of difference between someone who is a mere admirer of Christ and someone who is a disciple of Christ. The admirer of Christ loves to hear about Christ crucified, but they hate hearing a sermon about taking up the cross and following Christ outside the gates of the city. So I ask this question, are you a disciple of Christ? Or are you just an admirer of Christ? I think this cuts for every one of us. Let us repent to the extent that we have not taken up our cross and followed him. Well, that was the blasphemy part. Let's look at the rebuttal. We wanna look at, from scripture, a rebuttal of Bill C-4. But before we do that, I want to introduce that in this way. It's difficult for me to imagine something that's more basic to the physical world than this binary of male and female. So the fact that this is under attack by every stratosphere of society, as we've demonstrated, tells us that right now God is shaking the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. He's shaking things down to the very foundations so that those things that cannot be shaken will remain. And in doing this, God is showing not only to those who confess Christ, but also to all the world that these most basic categories of male and female only belong to those who confess Christ. We're gonna demonstrate this. In other words, he is showing that if you reject the monarchy of Jesus, the anointed king, you have nothing left but folly. Right now God is setting up the contrast between worshiping Christ and rejecting Christ. And he's doing it in a way and on a level that we have never witnessed before. on this continent. See, for a long time secularists have tried to keep some so-called common sense while at the same time rejecting Christ. But they've been borrowing from the bank of common grace that flows from a Christian fountainhead. And these secularists are discovering that to be consistent in their worldview, that there is more of this fountainhead that they have to reject than they originally thought. They are having to jettison what in their naivete that they thought was just common sense. In other words, God is demonstrating to all the world and to the angels and the principalities and the powers that what we've been calling common sense is not actually common at all in that sense. It comes only by confessing that Jesus is Lord. The moment you stop saying Jesus is Lord, you lose the ability to be able to define something as basic as male and female. Now you might be able to coast for a little while, but you've let your foot off the gas. These two truths rise and fall together. In other words, Bill C-4 is demonstrating for us that the myth of neutrality does not work. There is no truth that is neutral because all truth is God's truth and nobody is neutral toward God. There is nothing that is true that exists apart from God. So if you want to reject God properly, you want to reject Him good and hard, then you have to reject God's truth about male and female. Do you see that? Quote, if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness? Matthew 6, 23. Until you confess that Jesus is Lord, you will never be able to understand anything in the universe well. You will never understand the gospel, which is the universe's central theme. You will die in confusion. Your body will rise in judgment and confusion. You will spend eternity in hell, void of understanding, with your foolish heart darkened. Your knees will bow to the Lordship of Christ on the last day, but those knees are going to be begrudging, hateful knees. You will be eternally kicking against the goads. And in that dissenting, rebellious frame of mind, you will be able to comprehend nothing as you should. Your defiled and unbelieving mind and conscience will refuse to recognize the beauty and the purity of God's entire dealings with mankind from start to finish, from Eden to the Mount of Olives. You will not even begrudgingly admire the beauty of his handiwork. You will continue to loathe it as you do now. As you lived in this life, so you will live in the next. You will go on hating God with all of your heart, soul, and strength. Well, this is a dreadful state to contemplate. This is why we urge lost sinners to be reconciled to God. Behold your God. Look to Him and be saved, all the ends of the earth. The salvation that is ours as believers is so encompassing that we will not fully know until that great day how much we owe. Bill C-4 is setting that up for us to see. We do not yet comprehend how great the salvation is ours in Christ. The only alternative to Christ is ghastly, beyond words. Bill C-4 is just the beginning. It ends in weeping and gnashing of teeth. As we develop this theme of the centrality of Christ as the creator and the sustainer of all things, I'd like us to turn to an early Christian hymn. It begins in Colossians chapter one. in verse 15. Colossians chapter 1, verse 15. Now this early church plant in Colossae struggled with some different things. One of the things that they struggled with was to venerate angels. You'll see in chapter 2, verse 18, Paul addresses that head on. He's talking about the worshiping of angels. He says, don't do that. Paul in his letter to Colossae demonstrates through a high Christology that Christ is preeminently above the angels, the principalities, the powers. And so we get this beautiful argumentation here. And starting in verse 15, what may be him quoting him. Now, as we read a few verses of this hymn, I want us to notice how many times the word all occurs here. So let's begin. reading in Colossians 115. We're breaking in mid-sentence here, depending on how you render this. So I'll say, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by him all things were created that are in the uranois, the heavens, and that are in the geis, the earth. The horita, visible, and aurita, invisible. And then look at this list here, whether they be phrenoi, thrones, or kuriatetes, dominions, or archai, rulers, or exousiai, authorities. All things were created dia, him, you could say by him, and ace, could render that for or to him. Verse 17, and he is before all things, And tapanta, all things, in alto, in hymn, sunestechem, hold together or consist. Tapanta in alto, sunestechem, all things in hymn, hold together. Now I want us to focus here on this verb at the end of verse 17, this sunestechem. Like I said, it can mean hold together. It's the idea of a sequence of things and they are all being contained within a picture. Now this verb is a perfect active indicative. Christ did not just create the world and then disappear to let it do its own thing as the deists say. It's His continued holding together that causes you to have being, to have existence. That's the argument that Paul is using here. He holds together not just things visible, but things invisible as well here. Now, you can see how he would use this argument to talk about Christ being preeminent above the angels, that whole list of things, the thrones, the createtes, the dominions. You see, Christ holds things together, things that are not just physical, but things that are immaterial. So in a very real sense, we understand from this that Christ His holding together is what causes the laws of logic and the laws of science to continue to exist. He holds together the idea of holding things together. It's that foundational. He holds together the laws of mathematics. It's his continuation of holding things together that makes two plus two to equal four. And the concept of that, the concept of mathematics and being able to add Christ is the one through his sunestikem, his holding together, that causes that to be so. And here's the flashpoint of this that I want to bring out for us. It is Christ's sunestikem that causes you to continue to be the gender that he created you with. If you were born a man, when you awoke this morning, you awoke as a man because tapanta anato suneste ken, all things in him hold together. If you were born a woman, you awoke this morning a woman because tapanta anato suneste ken, in him all things hold together. Now do you see what this is pointing at? Since Christ is the one in whom all things hold together. Transgenderism is not just challenging a few select verses of scripture. The entire Christological is at stake here. To properly defend the faith in a world that scoffs at Christ's creator claims, we have to start with the foundational truth of Jesus Kurios, Jesus is Lord. That's the real battleground. Do you see why they're trying to get rid of male and female? They're attacking Christ, the second person of the Trinity, directly. Ah, now it makes sense. What seemed to make no sense, why in the world would you do this? Ah, this is about the serpent trying to crush the seed of the woman. And once we recognize that this is the real issue, we see that God is setting up a contrast of light and dark that is, we could say, breathtaking and mesmerizing. We could even say this, Bill C-4 is necessary for the full manifestation of God's glory to be revealed. Bill C-4 is God's way of shaking things down to the foundation so that Christ will draw all men to himself as the eternal word in whom all things consist. Bill C4 is showing us that what we thought was neutral common sense is actually the glory of Christ who is the absolute truth maker of all truth. Bill C4 points the bride to Christ on a level that in her drowsiness she had been taking for granted. Now this truth of Christ that is being revealed in this day is indeed glorious but it comes costly to those his servants. With the light of war, with the light of the world comes the fog of war. As we herald this banner of Christ in whom all things consist, we meet fierce resistance. We need to be preparing on a deep, deep level in these days for the gathering war. If we are going to overcome, we need to train and train and train. You can't train too much. Nobody on this battlefield has yet complained. that they trained too much. So we want to look at some key passages of scripture this afternoon that speak directly to this. It's important for us to be firmly convinced in our minds why we believe what we believe. If we're going to risk our entire earthly lives on this issue of transgenderism, we need to be firmly convinced in our minds that what we are standing on is solid ground. You'd be convinced that this isn't just some empty church tradition or that it came from colonialism or white fragility or personal preference, but that this is indeed the very word of God. Now this may seem like a vain exercise to some because we'll be looking at passages that you've seen before, they're familiar, seem very obvious to us. But you know, it's one thing to look at something when you're in the barracks of the Lord's regiment on a Sunday. It's another thing when you're warming your hands by the fire of the enemy's camp and they find out what you believe. Well, one thing, a whole lot different once you're in this animosity state, this line of fire. Things start looking a whole lot different when they've killed James and they've imprisoned Peter. Things look a whole lot different when your mortgage is at stake. Things start looking very different when your ability to put food on the table is at stake. Things start looking different when child services is threatening to take away your children from you because you are harming them with myths and stereotypes about sexual orientation. That's happening right now. So we need to be biblically grounded in our minds because this issue here could cost us everything in this life. You need to know when you're sitting in that jail cell with an easy way out, a paper that you can sign, you need to know why you believe what you believe. You need to believe it on a level that makes you willing to lose your house, your children, your parents, your own life. This is real Christianity here. This isn't the fake stuff. Quote, others were tortured, not accepting deliverance could render that release that they might obtain a better resurrection. Hebrews 1135. Well, we're given a foundation here. Let's look at some specific verses here. Let's turn to Matthew chapter 19. Matthew chapter 19, we'll start reading in the first verse here. And it came to pass that when Jesus had finished these sayings, he departed from Galilee, came into the coasts of Judah beyond Jordan. A great multitude followed him and he healed them there. Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him and saying unto him, is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? He answered and said unto them, Have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning, made them arson chi thala, male and female, and said, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh, what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Well, there's no getting around it in verse 4. This male-female binary, if you want to call it that, was instituted by God. He created that two-fold category, and He is the one who decides, who chooses, what gender each human He makes will have. Now, God could have created three genders if He wanted to. He could have created 168 genders if He wanted to, and it would have been good. But He created two. And when he was done, it was very good. There was no improving upon it. You know, it's not just that he created these two genders and then leaves it up to the individual to decide which of those two that you want to pick. No, in the very act of the creation of the genders comes specific examples of that. He made them Adam and Eve, male and female. Those things are inseparable. If gender is a construct, it is a divine construct. The law of the Medes and the Persians can sooner be broken than for the genders that God has assigned to be altered. Now, it should be enough that we have Moses' recording of this in Genesis 1.27 and 5.2, but the fact that we have the second Adam affirming this in Matthew 19 and in Mark 10, that locks tight the witness of both Testaments. When someone pressures you to capitulate, know that the very word that gives them their breath affirms what they are seeking to destroy. Job said in chapter 12, verse 10, in the Lord's hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. It's the Lord and his hand that contains the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind that comes from him. It is the very one who gives breath that is the one that they are against. And it is they, by the way, who are propagating miz contrary to him. Well, let's memorize this passage in Matthew 19, or you could look at the corollary in Mark 10. Let's have this firmly fixed. This is a good scripture to go to if you need to see it and look at it. Look at it as long as you need to. to be willing to die for this issue. Let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 22. Deuteronomy 22. We'll just jump in here. To verse five, the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment. For all that do so are toava unto the Lord thy God. Abomination. You see, to cross-dress is to make the very first step, not the last, but the first step in transgenderism. And this is Toa Vah in God's eyes. It's abomination. And I want us to stress this today. Transgenderism is Toa Vah. There's no soft-pedaling this. There's no apologizing for this. There's no second-guessing whether we have somehow created a system of oppression here. It's abomination. That's a very strong word in Hebrew. This verse makes it clear that if you go along with the gender drop-down soup, if you extend so-called pronoun hospitality to trannies, you are participating in what God calls tolava, abomination. And notice here, this is very interesting to me. It's not just the action that is spoken of. He does not say that to do such a thing is Tovah. The very persons who commit this are said themselves to be Tovah. There's not a stronger way to say this. Is there any doubt in our minds here that, is there any doubt what Jesus and Moses believed on this issue? So here's the message that we take to those who call us to capitulate. The God before whose judgment seat they will one day stand says that what they are promoting is abomination because it is twisting and revolting against his created order. And they will give an account for that. In other words, we give up too much ground when we simply say that such and such a thing that is trying to be imposed upon us goes against our religious convictions. That's not the message of the apostles. Rather, we tell our enemies that they are in objective opposition to God, and they will answer for that. It is not we who are in their court of judgment, it is they who are in God's court of judgment. It is they who are being hateful and bigoted toward God, their maker, who gives them life and breath. That is the stance that we are to hold on this. Now, will that put a bigger target on our back when we tell them that? Yes, it will. But that is the boldness of the early church, and that is the boldness that we are called to. Well, may God give us this boldness and the strength and the line of fire to faithfully herald this truth in this way. Well, we've considered the blasphemy and the rebuttal. And in closing now, we want to consider the charge. As this pressure cooker intensifies, as we begin to see it coming down the pike towards us, we're starting to see the mere admirers of Christ begin to drop off. Paul warned about this to Timothy. He said, the spirit is telling us this, that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith. 1 Timothy 4 verse 1. So I want to address those who consider themselves not mere admirers of Christ, but who consider themselves disciples of Christ. How you live right now, how you are living today is in a sense a prophecy of how you're going to live when it gets darker. What do I mean by that? Well, when God's ministers are in prison for righteousness sake, How do you know if you'll visit them in prison or not? Remember Paul, when he was on trial, he said, everyone forsook me at my court appearance. There were some Christians in that list of those that had forsaken him. Well, in answering that question, let me ask this question. Are we currently visiting the sick and their affliction? Are we making time for that? Do we care about the body for that? Will you resist the worship of Pharaoh that is looming closer every day? Right now, you are prophesying whether you will by how you respond to Pharaoh's current overreach and demands of lordship. You see, compromise today lends itself to greater compromise tomorrow. Faithfulness today enables faithfulness tomorrow. Will you choose Christ at the cost of son or daughter? Right now you are prophesying whether you will do that by what it takes to keep you home on Sunday. Will you die for Christ? Right now you are prophesying whether you will by whether you are living for Christ. Now, if you look at this and you say, I am not ready. My life is not in order. I have discipline that I need to do. I have sin I need to deal with. I have discipline in terms of my schedule and how I'm allocating my resources, my time. I need to develop love for the brother, love for the brethren, for the church. I'm not here to tell you it's too late. We just need to go home and feel guilty here. I'm saying these things so that we will be prepared, that we will not just be guilt-tripped, but so that we will be encouraged to get ready now while it's fairly easy still. It's not that hard to block time out of your schedule to go do something, to go see someone sick. You know what is harder? It's to block out that time to go see someone who's in prison and you might get in trouble for seeing them. So are we being faithful in the easier stuff right now? That lets us know whether we might be faithful in the harder stuff. If you want to get practice confessing Christ in an explicitly hostile environment, and I think it's a good thing to be training for, I invite you to come with me to the abortion clinic. Join in giving out tracts and preaching the gospel there. If you're looking for a place to train, Planned Parenthood is very good ground. I wanted to close with some encouragement from the apocalypse here to those who overcome. Turn with me to Revelation 14. How will we endure hardship in these days? The key is to look with the eyes of faith to the eschaton, to the culmination, to the appearing of Christ, to the glory that is revealed. Revelation is a good place to do that. Revelation 14, let's begin in the sixth verse. And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people saying with a loud voice, fear God and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come and worship him that made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, if any man worship the beast in his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation. And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever, and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints. Here are they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, right, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the spirit that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them. So there in verse 12, what is the patience of the saints and of those that keep the commandments of God Well, it's the fact that we see through the eyes of faith who wins and who loses on this. Jesus wins. He's coronated as king in a finality sense before all the principalities and powers, before all those who dwell on the earth. And then those who had an alternate kingdom, who had a rivalry kingdom, who had a rival king, they are thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone. And the smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever. And that's how we have endurance. That's how we have patience. I recommend frequently, if you're discouraged in these times, if you see the darkness that is coming in governments and in these different places, spend much time, spend more time thinking on the end as scripture defines it. You'll notice that we didn't turn to a lot of passages that we could have. We could have gone to Romans chapter one. We could have gone to first Corinthians chapter six. But these foundational issues of the Lordship of Christ, the beauty of the created order, the exceedingness of the goodness that he created, that positive message is what keeps us going. It is that that shall abide. So my encouragement is this, hold your position. Keep it tight. If the enemy tries to outflank you, refuse the line. If you run out of bullets, fix bayonets. You may be in the minority on earth, but I assure you, you will be the majority in heaven. There will be no drag queens in heaven. There will be no pink hair in heaven. Finish with a couple of quotes here. Look inside the empty tomb and leave your fears next to the linen wrappings. Or another one. Your doubt will answer to his scars. What about in the words of Job? And though after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. Amen. Let us pray. Our Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that you are the creator God who made everything good. And then on the sixth day, you created male and female, and it was very good, exceedingly good. good that could not be improved upon, good that the wisdom of man cannot improve upon and can only destroy when he tries to alter it. Lord, we thank you that you have created this good creation. We thank you that in the second Adam, who affirmed this binary of male and female, that in the second Adam, that men and women can be reconciled to you. through the confession of sin, the turning away from it, the turning away of things that are Toa Vah, abomination, and a trust in Christ, the Lamb of God, who, when he comes with his holy angels, will be ashamed of those who were ashamed of him, but who will say, come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you to those who did not love their lives even to death. Lord, may we be faithful in a few things. May we be faithful in the small things. May we be putting away sin from our lives in these days. Lord, it is not the case that if we are in prison that suddenly we will have a closeness to you that we did not have any knowledge of before. Lord, help us now to be developing relationships with you and with your people that are deep, that are vibrant, that are daily, so that if the going gets rougher, we may continue to cultivate those things that we began. May all that we do be done in love to you, to your kingdom, to your people. May we be faithful. May we not compromise. May we have the same commitment to not compromise that the enemy has committed to, so that it will be a struggle to the death, knowing that while the serpent will bruise the heel of the seed of the woman, yet his head shall be crushed. And indeed it truly was crushed in that place called a skull, Golgotha. We thank you that the death blow was given, that the promise of the judgment to come was given by the resurrecting of Christ from the dead, the proof in his resurrection in the empty tomb and the scars the proof of a day of judgment in which your truth, the beauty of it, is acknowledged by all, both knees of every male and female, bowing, confessing, Iesous kurios. Lord, we look forward to that day. Through the eyes of faith, we see that day already. And yet with the eyes of the flesh, we do not yet see all things subjected under his feet. Help us to be faithful in bringing that to pass, we ask. In the mighty name of Jesus the King.